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RIM co-CEO of Jim Balsillie's made it official: AT&T will finally ship the BlackBerry Bold in October, maybe. He made theannoucment during his CTIA Wireless keynote address on Thursday.

"We expect the U.S. launch in early October," Balsillie said at the wireless industry gathering. Then he - unfortunately - qualified that statement a little bit with "we're hopeful."

A month ago, RIM started rolling out the Bold in some international markets. Then, about a week later, Rogers in Canada became the first North American carrier to pick up the highly-coveted smartphone—the first BlackBerry with GSM-friendly 3G technology for e-mail.

While we've known for months that AT&T will offer the Bold in the U.S., there's been little sign - other than rumor - regarding exactly when. Many expected it would happen in this month or even earlier, which obviously didn’t happen.

Rumor has it the same problems the iPhone's been experiencing with AT&T's 3G wireless network is what's kept the Bold from shipping stateside this month.

Yesterday's statement from Balsillie follows the uncovering of a draft press release announcing the launch of the Bold earlier this week. The supposed press release said AT&T would launch the Bold nationwide on "xxxxday, October xx." It appears the leaked document was the genuine article.