T-Mobile Confirms Talks To Stock Google’s Nexus One

The battle of the smartphones has heated up after a spokesman for T-Mobile UK confirmed to eWEEK Europe that the mobile operator is talking to Google about stocking its Nexus One smartphone.

Reports began circulating after Robin O’Kelly, T-Mobile UK’s head of corporate affairs, revealed the possibility of a deal when asked about a T-Mobile Google Nexus One on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

O’Kelly responded to the Nexus One query tweeting, “We’re talking to Google re nexus and hope we can come up with something very soon.”

He later verbally confimed this to eWEEK Europe.

“We are talking to Google at the moment, and we hope to have an announcement in due course,” O’Kelly said. “We make no bones about it that it is a very exciting device,” he said.

O’Kelly however had no details about a possible release date.

Until now, the only confirmed UK operator for the Nexus One has been Vodafone. A Vodafone spokesman told eWEEK Europe that it will be stocking the Nexus One, with an early Spring launch expected. However the Vodafone spokesman could not confirm any pricing details, or whether the agreement with Google for the Nexus One was exclusive.

Speaking at the launch of the Nexus One in early January, Google’s vice president of product management, Mario Queiroz, announced Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile in the United States and Vodafone in Europe, would be selling the device in spring 2010.

However following its launch in the US, complaints began to surface on Google’s mobile help forum about the poor 3G coverage from T-Mobile when using the Nexus One smartphone. A Google employee then said last week that the search engine giant may have found a fix for the spotty 3G service plaguing US users.

Of course, consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Singapore can buy the Nexus One without service, which means any GSM network SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card can be inserted into the device. Alternatively, users purchase the phone with service from one of Google’s operator partners via Google’s new hosted web store.

The Nexus One is Google’s first forray into the smartphone market as it looks to expand beyond its search engine domination and take on Apple’s popular iPhone device. The Mountain View, California-based firm has also sparked rumours that it will take on Apple’s recently launched iPad, after a tablet based on Google’s Chrome OS has been shown, in concept form, on the Chromium site.