Engadget is reporting that Canadian cellular carrier Telus has finally launched a Fastap-enabled LG handset.

Fastap is keypad layout, developed by Digit Wireless, in which the letters are interspersed between the numbers, as shown below. The letters are also raised slightly to prevent selecting multiple keys at once.

I first met the folks from Digit Wireless three years ago and I thought the keypad was a winner back then. Apparently carriers and device manufactuers have been less enthused. But I'm glad Digit Wireless stuck with it because this really is a great way to squeeze a lot of functionality into a little space.

I've used Fastap and I believe that it's a lot easier to learn than Blackberry's latest keypad incarnation, included below.

I still prefer qwerty but I also wonder if qwerty is a generational thing. I was forced to learn qwerty in high school using, yes, actual typewriters. And I distinctly remember just how absurd qwerty appeared to me at first. Today, qwerty is my perferred mode of text input, and I very much want my smart phone to support qwerty as well.

But I am old news in the eyes of the cellular industry. The next generation of computer users, particularly outside the US, have grown up using cellular handsets. These folks might find Fastap to be a better way to input text than qwerty because they never had that required typing class.

Of course, Fastap is going to have to find its way onto a few dozen more handsets before that changeover can begin.