iPhone 5 to support 21Mb/s HSPA+ not LTE A China Unicom executive has let slip that the iPhone 5 - or, at least, the 2011 edition of the Apple handset - will support HSPA+ 3G technology with download speeds of up to 21Mb/s. That would seem to scupper the hopes of fanboys hoping their next handset will support LTE '4G' technology. At the Macworld Asia show, the …
There'll most likely be a handful of variants, LTE, CDMA, etc. There's already a CDMA iPhone for Verizon so the precedent is set.
There's no point fitting expensive LTE chipset for phones destined for non-LTE markets.
For the relatively few people who'll be using it to roam it'll be mildly annoying but what other phone maker sells LTE phones in non-LTE markets?
Jobs is currently putting the boot to Samsung - and having seen their products being SOLD at retail you know why - and undoubtedly Samsung is ready to return the compliment.
LG and Samsung might be competitors but they are also flag waivers so, together, they can put the screws to the fruit factory as far as LTE goes.
LTE == IMS. You cannot do voice without it as VOLGA is now effectively dead.
IMS == in-application per-session operator driven charging model.
Apple has succeeded in wrestling away financial control from operators. It now owns the charging model and it is per-app and not per session and the operator sees nothing of that (and nothing of the cash changing hands).
Why on earth do you expect it to surrender it voluntarily? They do not strike me as stupid.
It will stick with HSPA++++ for as long as it can and even longer because this is what matches its financial strategy. I really do not see it doing LTE any time soon. Even if it does it, that will be for data only and it will be with 3G as well so it can have legacy circuit switched voice and avoid doing an IMS stack (3G has better voice channel efficiency than GSM for most use cases).
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great another hi-tech tramnsmission protocol that's never to be fully utilised except three blocks away from 1 or 2 telco's in the world.
In my country 3G isn't even fully deployed in 2011. There are areas where data transmission is only EDGE which is dog slow (yet every jackshit telco in here is bragging how good 'their' network is).
Their a all a bunch of lairs and thieves. I'm NOT interested! I'm NOT going to buy any new toy unless those morons keep their promises and FULLY deploy proper 3G with at least 3Mbps downstream!
We should boycot them all!
There are some excellent hardware knock offs here in China of iThingies, the very same graphics, etc. at much lower prices than Jobs iThingy. As low as $125 depending on memory size AND they support LTE.
Oh, they use the Android OS. And you can hold them any which way and still make calls.
21Mbps. Yes, of course. More like about 200kbps in a built up area where the cellco has bothered to invest in kit because there are enough punters with smartphones to give them a decent ROI. But then, precisely because it's a built up area full of punters with smartphones, it will be so saturated, you'll get a mere trickle.
Time for the cellcos to raise their game and stop selling us the impossible dream. Invest in the network, not crapware and stupid loyalty bonuses that no one wants, dreamt up by marketing MBA types.
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