After a long period in waiting, Canadian customers will soon be able to purchase legitimate iPhones from Rogers Wireless.

Ted Rogers, president and chief executive officer of Rogers Communications announced today that his company officially signed with Apple to bring the iPhone to consumers later this year. Rogers did not indicate exactly when but did say that it would late.

Rogers commented on the deal saying "we’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stayed tuned."

And that was pretty much the only statement made from Rogers on the iPhone.

Coincidentally, Apple is set to start manufacturing its next-generation 3G iPhone next month. The iPhone is expected to be released sometime in late June or early July say analysts. We contacted Rogers for a comment but none was given. A rogers representative said that the company would not be able to release any information about what iPhone would be launched and when, but did not deny that it may be the 3G iPhone.

It would make absolute sense for Rogers to go with the new 3G model of the iPhone, as going with the old 2.5G phone wouldn’t make any sense at this point in time. Doing so would put Rogers well behind AT&T in the U.S. market.

Several months ago, photos of a Rogers Wireless ad announcing the iPhone spread around the web, but was quickly determined as fake and nothing more than a quick Photoshop work. Rogers at the time said that there were no iPhone plans and that when and if there were, would be announced accordingly.

Now Canadian users won’t have to buy iPhones and have them unlocked to use with Rogers — which is currently what all Canadian iPhone users do.