Nokia Maps is rumored to be replacing Bing Maps on Windows Phone 8, but that’s still a few months away. For now, Microsoft has updated Bing Maps on current Windows Phone handsets, greatly expanding the number of streets it can show traffic on. Previously, traffic was only available for highways and major streets. Now, traffic on a large number of secondary streets will appear as well.

This improvement is due in large part to Nokia, which owns and operates the service which powers Bing’s traffic results. Microsoft and Nokia also plan on introducing traffic functionality to 26 other regions in the near future. If you live in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, or the United Kingdom, you’ll no longer be left out. Best of all, these changes will happen automatically; no update is required.

[Windows Phone Blog]

Stephen Elop, the CEO of Nokia, has reaffirmed his company’s commitment to tightening its integration with Bing Maps. Nokia Maps will soon be the driving force behind Bing’s mapping service, and the Finnish company’s logo will sit side-by-side with Microsoft’s on devices of all sorts.

Strangely, many sites are acting as if Elop’s recent interview with Pocket-lint is a revelation. We have, in fact, known about the upcoming integration of Bing Maps and Nokia Maps since the initial Microsoft/Nokia strategic partnership nearly a year ago. An open letter, jointly written by Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, clearly states that “Nokia Maps will be a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services.”

We’re quite pleased to hear that plans for a tighter integration between the two services are still on track. The current Bing Maps implementation is good, but the auditory turn-by-turn directions feature found in Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” is somewhat hampered by licensing agreements. A Bing Maps fully powered by Nokia would, in theory, allow Windows Phone to present the user with true auditory turn-by-turn directions without the need to tap on the screen every so often. Nokia Maps also has a fantastic routing system for countries outside of the United States, where Bing occasionally runs into issues.

We couldn’t be happier with this arrangement. The only question is: when will it finally go live?

[Pocket-lint]