T-Mobile said its 3G service will become available in Europe in May: T-Mobile is expected to be the first European operator to start selling 3G handsets. Instead of distinguishing between all the various network technologies, like GPRS, EDGE, and UMTS, T-Mobile will start referring to all data services as T-Mobile Multimedia, or TM3. It sounds like T-Mobile will include Wi-Fi in that designation. If T-Mobile introduces price plans that include both Wi-Fi and cellular data to users of integrated data cards that operate over either network, the single TM3 designation might work. But if T-Mobile continues to offer plans that include only the Wi-Fi hotspots or only cellular data, using a single term to refer to any of them could be really confusing for consumers.
It will be very interesting to watch how T-Mobile handles offering both networks in Europe. When the 3G network launches, we'll begin to see experimentation on how operators can best use the Wi-Fi and 3G together to offer the best service for users.