First Google Android-Based "HTC Dream" Phone Wins FCC Nod

Cell phone carrier T-Mobile on Monday has won the required approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell the much-hyped Android-powered phone, the HTC Dream, in the United States, clearing an important hurdle in the device development process.

T-Mobile, the mobile unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, can now launch the Android phone HTC DREA100 model, or HTC Dream, in the United States.

The FCC also announced Monday that they approved the nationwide sale of the first Android-powered phone HTC Dream.

Early reports indicate that Bellevue-based T-Mobile will now make immense efforts to bring the HTC Dream with Android OS in stores this fall, just in time for the holiday shopping spree.

The most probable launch date has to be around November 10, as Taiwanese handset maker HTC in its filing with the FCC has requested the agency to keep details secret until November.

The HTC Dream will be the first mobile phone to run on the Google Android OS, and will operate on the 1700 WCDMA band, which is T-Mobile's 3G network. It will also support Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0, and is expected to have a large 5-inch by 3-inch touch screen display and a "jogball," which is likely similar to the navigation track ball featured on certain BlackBerry models like the Pearl and the Curve.

The other expected features of the “Dream” are: A GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/1900 radio, a full Web browser based on the same WebKit as Safari on the iPhone, a sliding QWERTY keyboard, a 3-megapixel camera and Google apps like Gmail, Maps, and YouTube.

Following the news of the FCC approval for the first Android phone, the Internet search powerhouse, Google released the new Android 0.9 SDK beta, apparently paving the way for the final Android 1.0 version.

Launched on November 5, 2007, Google’s Android is an open source software platform that includes an Operating System (OS), middleware and key applications. It is designed to take advantage of Internet services for mobility and is expected to give stiff competition to Windows Mobile and other handset operating systems.

More than thirty technology and mobile companies joined the Open Handset Alliance to launch Android as "the first open, complete, and free platform created specifically for mobile devices". The alliance includes handset makers Motorola and LG Electronics, software maker Google, speech recognition expert Nuance Communications and eBay and GPS specialist SiRF Technology, among others.

The Linux-based Android features an Application Framework enabling reuse and replacement of components, a Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices, integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine, Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional) and QLite for structured data storage.

In addition, the Android platform includes Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF) and Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE.

GSM Telephony, Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and Wi-Fi, Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent) are the other features of Android.