Just heard from BBHub reader Steve.

He's just spoken to his Cingular Wireless rep.

This morning, his rep told him that no, the Cingular Pearl won't be released this month or next.

If so, that would contravene all these November, 2006 rumors, but not be uncharacteristic of these delays in this device's release sked: ..October, 2006, as in that Cingular devCentral screen that was furiously yanked in a fraction of a nanosecond as soon as the link to that file hit the blogosphere, heh heh;

November, 2006, the currently meme-d release date but one which, from the sounhd of it, may not happen.

December 2006 wouldn't be a good month. Holidays and all. Not enough time to exploit the full shopping season. Plus, with all these BlackBerry Pearl dust reports, well put it this way. The chimneys Santa slides down are dusty.

And now, if what Steve's Cingular Wireless rep told him is true, January 2007.

Yup, January.

Push To Talk? There were hopes in certain quarters that PTT would be included.

But those might only have been hopes. Hey, I "hope" I win Powerball, if ya know what I mean.

Cingular rep to Steve: "I doubt it."

We get paid to doubt. We dig for the facts. Or as the singer-songwriter once known as Cat Stevens used to proclaim, we're "on the road to find out."

You dig?