At AT&T's press feast today, the focus was unquestionably the trial deployment of Microsoft's Surface kiosks to stores later this month -- the presence of Microsoft's own Robbie Bach was testament to that fact. But there was more to the action by the time the show was over. Deployment of 3G and 4G services was a hot topic both during CEO Ralph de la Vega's presentation and in the post-conference Q&A (one member of the press lamented the fact that AT&T's BlackBerrys still lack HSDPA), and at one point he mentioned that all of the carrier's smartphones would be 3G within a matter of mere "months."

We figure that instantly thrusts several devices onto (and off of) AT&T's roadmap in the very near future, including a 3G iPhone and the BlackBerry 9000 we recently saw strutting its stuff. Of course, that would also preclude the just-introduced Palm Centrofrom hanging around for very long, since it tops out with EDGE speeds; last time we checked Garnet had a hard time handling HSDPA, so something's got to give. We're not writing the obit just yet -- CEOs' statements are often a mere shadow of reality, after all -- but it's certainly food for thought.