Apple's iPhone 5s and 5c support China Mobile TD-LTE bands, suggest unannounced partnership
While not announced during Apple's iPhone media event on Tuesday, the latest iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are both compatible with TD-LTE bands used by China Mobile, hinting at a future deal with the world's largest cellular carrier.
According to the respective official technical specifications webpages for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, the devices will work on TD-LTE networks, a somewhat rare flavor of 4G used by China Mobile.
Although Apple does not yet list China as one of the countries supported by the LTE-capable iPhones, tech specs for the iPhone 5s model A1530 and iPhone 5c model A1529 note support for TD-LTE. Of the few providers using the 4G technology, China Mobile is the largest by far, though the telecom has not yet finished building out the advanced network.
There has been no official word that Apple and China Mobile reached an agreement, though analyst Ming-Chi Kuo noted last week that the telecom may postpone such an announcement until the network rollout is complete. He believes the iPhone 5s will be used to promote China Mobile's new TD-LTE capabilities and expects a launch by November.
An Apple tie up with China Mobile has long been rumored, though the two companies were reportedly not able to reach agreements in recent high level meetings. According to one report, a China Mobile deal, along with the recently announced NTT DoCoMo arrangement,could drive an additional 35 million iPhones sales in 2014.
Apple will release multiple iPhone 5s and 5c versions with different baseband chips to support its various partner carriers. In the U.S., one model of each phone will cover AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, while a variant is set to operate on Sprint's network. The latter model will also work with networks run by Japanese carriers Softbank and KDDI.
According to the respective official technical specifications webpages for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, the devices will work on TD-LTE networks, a somewhat rare flavor of 4G used by China Mobile.
Although Apple does not yet list China as one of the countries supported by the LTE-capable iPhones, tech specs for the iPhone 5s model A1530 and iPhone 5c model A1529 note support for TD-LTE. Of the few providers using the 4G technology, China Mobile is the largest by far, though the telecom has not yet finished building out the advanced network.
There has been no official word that Apple and China Mobile reached an agreement, though analyst Ming-Chi Kuo noted last week that the telecom may postpone such an announcement until the network rollout is complete. He believes the iPhone 5s will be used to promote China Mobile's new TD-LTE capabilities and expects a launch by November.
An Apple tie up with China Mobile has long been rumored, though the two companies were reportedly not able to reach agreements in recent high level meetings. According to one report, a China Mobile deal, along with the recently announced NTT DoCoMo arrangement,could drive an additional 35 million iPhones sales in 2014.
Apple will release multiple iPhone 5s and 5c versions with different baseband chips to support its various partner carriers. In the U.S., one model of each phone will cover AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, while a variant is set to operate on Sprint's network. The latter model will also work with networks run by Japanese carriers Softbank and KDDI.
Comments
(IMHO)
Remember, there's a separate keynote in China tomorrow. That'd be it, I think.
Also WHY ARE THERE FOUR PHONES?! HOW IS THAT BETTER?! Who's in charge of LTE chip production? Not at Apple, anywhere. Someone needs hit upside the head for being so incompetent as to not be able to do this by now.
"It's not that sim–"
I know that; it shouldn't matter to consumers. One phone, everywhere.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/04/apple-to-hold-separate-chinese-iphone-event-on-sept-11
"Just ten hours after", this says, so yep, roughly five now.
I HOPE that means that's our model, not the others.
The only band none of the phones support is band 28, our future 700Mhz network (doesn't exist yet).
To cut right to the chase, Apple announced at its live event today two new iPhone models: high end iPhone 5S and mid range iPhone 5C. Both are coming to Sprint and both support Sprint LTE -- but only dual band Sprint LTE. The new crop of iPhone models for the next year will not be tri band LTE handsets on Sprint.
The LTE bands supported by iPhone 5S (A1453) and iPhone 5C (A1456) are substantial and as follows: band 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26. For Sprint users, that means dual band LTE 1900/800.
While 13 total bands seems impressive, a few of those bands -- such as band 2/25 and band 5/26 -- are subset/superset bands. The big takeaway for Sprint users, though, is that band 41 is absent this year. So, TD-LTE 2600 will be coming soon to several tri band Android handsets but not to the dual band two new iPhone models. Band 38 TD-LTE 2600 is limited to the Asia/Oceania variants.
Also worthy of note, Sprint and SoftBank share the same iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C variants this year. Whether that is merely coincidence is impossible to determine. But Sprint and SoftBank have talked about combined economy of scale as a benefit of their tie up.
http://s4gru.com/index.php?/blog/1/entry-352-teaser-iphone-gets-two-new-models-but-no-lte-band-trifecta-on-sprint/
That is very dissapointing that it does not support tri band LTE since all that massive Clearwire spectrum is now being repurposed for Sprint LTE and neither the 5C or 5S will ever be able to use that.
Unless China mobile carriers have good subsidy, I doubt Apple will sell many iPhone 5c there. It's $550. Screw it.
Unless China mobile carriers have good subsidy, I doubt Apple will sell many iPhone 5c there. It's $550. Screw it.
Well, it's $550 unlocked, today, here. I suspect they spec'ed it so that they had some room to drop that price (or accept a smaller subsidy) in China.
And between CM and DoMoCo (or whatever the Japanese carrier is called), folks are thinking this may mean _35 million_ more iPhone sales this year ( or another ~$17B+ in revenue)
Next year, they're going to have to roll the iPhone out to Mars or something, because I think they've largely exhausted the supply of new carriers on this planet.
of course Apple is going to announce its China Mobile deal "tomorrow" at the China event. Duh. why else? come on AI, you should have been able to add 2 + 2.
Well, as an Apple stockholder, I hope this is true. It'd be big, and I don't know if everyone on Wall Street realizes the likelihood or importance.
Not only that, it is also compatible with the crap telco over here in NL. Finally. Stupid telco didn't want to invest in the 1800MHz 4G band because they needed to scatter out more towers. Oh well, it'll work now without those towers anyhoo.
One phone everywhere is hardly possible. Unless you expect Apple to put two radios in each phone. Apple buys the most expensive readies, which is why they've only needed two phones to cover everything, other than China Mobile. If you look at other companies, they can have as many as a dozen versions of a phone to cover the same amount of ground. Apple does pretty well.
The problem is that no e of the radios available cover all of the bands. They been getting better, and maybe someday they will. But they don't now.
There are 35 million iPhones on China Mobile's network now. They don't use 3G for the most part either. These grey market phones have been so popular, that China Mobile began a service to cut SIM cards down, and sells SIM cards for the iPhone.
And remember that most of those phones were bought for prices that are higher than retail, many for over $1,000 US. If the 5C does go for $550 retail, I will be disappointed, sure, but they will be snapped up there.
I think there are a lot more carriers. But most are fairly small, though in the aggregate they add up to an impressive number.
Both the 5s and 5c and that's why the 5 had to go.
(IMHO)
That's a good point. I was also wondering if the milling machines used to make the 5 frames (and I assume now the 5S) are going to be fully utilized on making just one model to keep up with demand and thus they went with the polycarbonate alternative? Also may work in their favor on margins as an additional benefit.
One phone everywhere is hardly possible. Unless you expect Apple to put two radios in each phone. Apple buys the most expensive readies, which is why they've only needed two phones to cover everything, other than China Mobile. If you look at other companies, they can have as many as a dozen versions of a phone to cover the same amount of ground. Apple does pretty well.
The problem is that no e of the radios available cover all of the bands. They been getting better, and maybe someday they will. But they don't now.
The Qualcomm RF 360 actually would have covered pretty much everything. Perhaps it just wasn't ready in quantity.
http://www.qualcomm.com/media/releases/2013/02/21/qualcomm-rf360-front-end-solution-enables-single-global-lte-design-next
Apple offers financing in China for qualified buyers. The buyer pays monthly payments for a chosen amount of months, 3, 6, 12, 18, or 24. If the buyer pays back the loan within 12 months, then the interest rate is 0%.
Well, it's $550 unlocked, today, here. I suspect they spec'ed it so that they had some room to drop that price (or accept a smaller subsidy) in China.
Actually it's even more expensive in China!
"The new iPhones go on sale next week in China and they are very expensive. The starting prices for the 5c and 5s are $735 and $867, respectively."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/world/2013/09/11/apples-new-iphones-may-underwhelm-in-china/2796885/