Amazon has set the worldwide launch of its latest generation of Kindles for October 19th, which is news to mobile providers on this side of the Atlantic.  The thing is, the Kindle kind of needs a wireless signal to do the whole “downloading books thing” (that being its entire deal) and companies like Vodafone and O2 sort of expected to be consulted.  What with them being in charge of wireless signals around here.

The lack of communications (to the point where said communications companies followed Amazon’s announcement with press releases basically saying “Wait, what now?”) is especially odd considering Amazon’s previous statement that they couldn’t unleash their equipment in the UK until extensive negotiations with telecoms companies were complete.

We have to imagine that someone is simply staying silent about their involvement, but what possible reason they could have eludes us.  Especially when that means Amazon omit any mention of who’ll make its flagship e-reader actually work in this country – the sort of thing you’ll have to sort out if you expect anyone to buy one.  UK mobile service is notoriously provincial, with various networks having hotspots and not-spots, but the only thing worse than being identified with only one service is being identified with none.

They have just over a week to say something before release – we’ll have to wait and see, but with e-readers still working through existing problems they’ll need every advantage they can get.