Apple recently signed a 7-year, $56ish million contract with wireless technology firm InterDigital. According to an involved analyst, the licensing agreement covers "various 2G and 3G cellular technologies encompassing bandwidth allocation, roaming and power efficiency controls, and most likely also includes some type of packet data coding and delivery." Oh, and some chunk of this technology licensing warrants another $20 million payment from Apple down the line.

Does this mean anything today? No. But it's concrete evidence that a 3G iPhone is on the horizon, however far off it may or may not be. [cnet and eweek]

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