Cingular just launched their 3G HSDPA network in a small part of the New York City metro area. Their bizarre, patchwork coverage map looks a bit strange, so let me explain it for you. The network covers:

• The bottom half of Manhattan, home to a lot of major national media (read: technology product reviewers) and big Wall Street/Fortune 1000 companies with Cingular corporate contracts.
• The three major airports. Ya gotta do airports.
• A smidgen of Jersey City, specifically the smidgen to where certain large investment banks have moved their office towers.
• Now here's the interesting part: White Plains, NY. White Plains is the US headquarters of Nokia, who have been strangely silent on release dates for 3G handsets on Cingular. Does Cingular lighting up Nokia's HQ with high-speed presage a better relationship, and high-speed Nokia handsets coming soon? Maybe it's Kremlinology to say so, but I think it does. (Some of those big financial companies also have their back offices in White Plains.)

On Cingular's planned coverage map for September, they have a big splotch around Parsippany, NJ, which is the home of some major Cingular Wireless offices (the former headquarters of AT&T Wireless) and some big industrial parks.

It's very nice that I won't have to travel to Baltimore any more to test Cingular high-speed devices, but their coverage map is still lacking compared to Verizon's and Sprint's. And where are the phones? Cingular is now down to one 3G phone, the nondescript Samsung ZX10. They need to bring up their game several notches if they want to be anything better than a faint #3 in the 3G world.