Update 26/11/2005: Corrected some grammatical errors and added model number information - the N80 which was approved in this FCC grant is the Nokia N80-3. Presumably the N80 with quadband + WCDMA 2100 will be the Nokia N80-1.
Nokia obviously wants -something- to be out by christmas (we hope).
The North American (WCDMA 1900) version of the delightful Nokia N80 has been FCC approved, surprisingly early for a phone meant to ship in Q1 2005. [The test report indicates that the test device (Nokia N80-3) is a five band (GSM850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA1900) mobile phone with GPRS,EGPRS and Bluetooth. The europe/asia (WCDMA 2100) version was not tested, and will require a different FCC ID.]
We would like to suggest that this makes it likely that the North American N80 will be released extremely soon - but this is still uncertain: Maybe Nokia has just got into an FCC-approval groove, and are sending their prototypes in earlier than before. (Remember that the Nokia N71 has also been approved.) This probably does mean that they've gotten the hang of how to engineer the radios (for WCDMA + GSM) effectively, which is especially shocking because the N80 is the first quadband GSM + WCDMA 1900 device Nokia has produced.
Possibly the strangest thing about this is that the Nokia N91 has not yet been approved - Nokia must be really breaking their backs doing the WMA / PlaysForSure work; although we're uncertain why that would affect radio emission characteristics. Isn't that software?
Also, it might be that more approvals are required before the FCC allows sale of the phone. The test report published with this approval was a test to comply with the radio emissions requirements of Part 15B of the FCC rules, but tests required for compliance with Parts 22 and 24 of the FCC rules have not yet been approved by the FCC. We're not entirely certain about the specific requirements for FCC compliance though - feel free to educate us.
And US readers - please note the Cingular sign on the phone.
