That's not quite true. There are a host of frequencies being considered by various countries. None are "standard". And as the US has and is having major deployments before any other major country, perhaps what is done here should be considered as "standard", and everyone else should be following.
The real problem is that different countries have allocated spectrum for other uses, and that leaves whatever is left for this. That's why we see so many different frequencies in use.
And, of course, what China Mobile is using isn't "standard" at all.
That's one of the problems as compared to GSM and later UMTS operating bands. Even though LTE's E-UTRA air interface as a standard does put most of the world on a level playing field the allocation of spectrum within nations and within carriers is just as problematic if not worse as a whole. At least when the US had CDMA and GSM it was simpler for the consumer to understand that one phone wouldn't work on the other, but when they all support LTE but can't be used across networks because they don't support each other's spectrums.
There are plenty of sites that say Sprint supports the 800Mhz band. That's great, but that it's not very telling or accurate. According to this site that 800MHz alias supported by Sprint is not supported by other networks. It's operating band 26 which is combination of operating bands 5 and 18. Does Qualcomm have a way to cover multiple spectrums with a single power amplifier, duplexer, and coupler without a severe hit to power efficiency? So far I haven't seen it.
I don't like to be a doubting thomas so I can only hope that you are right and that it's a lot easier than it seems to add this support.
All I know at the moment is that Siri in Canada (for me) is 100% useless. It doesn't do any of the things that are in the ads and basically is only good for questions that you might look up on Wolfram Alpha. It also fails to understand even those requests about 50% of the time.
I tried using Siri dictation several times and for whatever reason, it didn't work even a tiny bit. I spoke the same sentence about 20 times in succession (pausing between each), speaking normally, slowly, greater and lesser enunciation etc, and it failed miserably every single time. The sentence was "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," so it's not like it was anything difficult either. I'm assuming that this has something to do with the language and keyboard settings which often cause problems if you use anything other than the American English stuff. This has been a historical problem on Mac OS-X so it's probably more of the same on iOS.
I should add that I have an excellent clear speaking voice and have been on TV a few times as a result of that talent. I'm not mumbling or mispronouncing anything in the slightest.
It is frustrating though, it is kind of sloppy and shabby of Apple to constantly ignore these kinds of problems, and it is true that most everything they advertise to do with language doesn't actually work for the non-US population of the world. I know that someday they will get their act together in this respect, I just hope I'm still alive to see it.
I'm Portuguese, born and raised in Lisbon, with normative Portuguese being my native language, accent, and dialect; and despite that, Siri has absolutely no trouble understanding me, not even in noisy environments. As a matter of fact, dictation has fully replaced the on-screen keyboard for me when I'm inputting text in English, with the only errors being related to my use of words that Siri is not expecting in the context of my conversations, such as technical terms. Regarding features, I don't see many limitations either. It can't tell me where I am or trace my way back home, but it does everything else, including weather forecasts and geofenced reminders. If you are not using the en-US voice (very common among people who complain about Siri), switch to it and your experience will improve a lot.
That's one of the problems as compared to GSM and later UMTS operating bands. Even though LTE's E-UTRA air interface as a standard does put most of the world on a level playing field the allocation of spectrum within nations and within carriers is just as problematic if not worse as a whole. At least when the US had CDMA and GSM it was simpler for the consumer to understand that one phone wouldn't work on the other, but when they all support LTE but can't be used across networks because they don't support each other's spectrums.
There are plenty of sites that say Sprint supports the 800Mhz band. That's great, but that it's not very telling or accurate. According to this site that 800MHz alias supported by Sprint is not supported by other networks. It's operating band 26 which is combination of operating bands 5 and 18. Does Qualcomm have a way to cover multiple spectrums with a single power amplifier, duplexer, and coupler without a severe hit to power efficiency? So far I haven't seen it.
I don't follow every chip that every maker produces, but we can see, historically, that as time goes on, they do support more frequencies. Then there is the antenna problem. There have been some breakthroughs recently in antenna design, and Apple has patented some for themselves. So we'll see what the future brings. There is no throretical reason why they can't support most all of the frequencies required, but it will take a few more years.
Like most other things, we get into a snot about this, only to forget all about it a few years later as the problems get solved.
Like most other things, we get into a snot about this, only to forget all about it a few years later as the problems get solved.
I'm sure I'll forgot some day but I'm still well aware of the issues haunting cellphones and the speed at which the market has grown.
In 2007 we had an iPhone with no 3G support. This was an unbelievably thin smartphone that looks clunky by today's standards. Apple was right not to include 3G in that first model as even the 2008 iPhone had a severe drop in battery life despite it's 3G data rates being very low.
As previously stated it was only in 2010 that the first penta-band 3G capable chips appeared. First in a Nokia phone and then the iPhone 4. Before Apple introduced the iPhone 4S there was no good world mode phone. The baseband chips are too large and power inefficient. Apple showed it could be done but there were plenty of sacrifices it had to make to make it work.
They offer 3 LTE bands in the iPad (3). Can they add several more for the 6th gen iPhone? I'm not so sure but it would be nice to see.
I'm sure I'll forgot some day but I'm still well aware of the issues haunting cellphones and the speed at which the market has grown.
In 2007 we had an iPhone with no 3G support. This was an unbelievably thin smartphone that looks clunky by today's standards. Apple was right not to include 3G in that first model as even the 2008 iPhone had a severe drop in battery life despite it's 3G data rates being very low.
As previously stated it was only in 2010 that the first penta-band 3G capable chips appeared. First in a Nokia phone and then the iPhone 4. Before Apple introduced the iPhone 4S there was no good world mode phone. The baseband chips are too large and power inefficient. Apple showed it could be done but there were plenty of sacrifices it had to make to make it work.
They offer 3 LTE bands in the iPad (3). Can they add several more for the 6th gen iPhone? I'm not so sure but it would be nice to see.
At one point they were using two radio chips. I think it's one now. I suppose, if they had the room, and battery life, they could add another again. There are really a fairly small number of people, even these days, who really need a phone that works everywhere. All the time. With all the data they want. As more people become needful of that, it will appear. Next year? Maybe.
The one thing we can be sure of is that the chip manufacturers are working their pants off to get this to happen.
Whoever does it first will have a VERY big payday.
Of course why bother to encourage the Chinese use of proprietary 3G signaling They just did it to avoid paying royalties.
Let China Mobile hurry to build out their LTE service in order to carry the iPhone, and let the other two chinese carriers get as many world-standard 3G customers as they can sign up.
Of course why bother to encourage the Chinese use of proprietary 3G signaling They just did it to avoid paying royalties.
Let China Mobile hurry to build out their LTE service in order to carry the iPhone, and let the other two chinese carriers get as many world-standard 3G customers as they can sign up.
China Mobile's 4G service is also home grown in the same way their 3G service is.
Of course why bother to encourage the Chinese use of proprietary 3G signaling They just did it to avoid paying royalties.
Let China Mobile hurry to build out their LTE service in order to carry the iPhone, and let the other two chinese carriers get as many world-standard 3G customers as they can sign up.
You don't run a business. If you did, you would know why.
You don't run a business. If you did, you would know why.
I do, and I recognize that the design compromises required to support another radio would lessen the user experience that Apple insists on delivering today (size, battery life) . When a market segment is more expensive to support, it waits.
I do, and I recognize that the design compromises required to support another radio would lessen the user experience that Apple insists on delivering today (size, battery life) . When a market segment is more expensive to support, it waits.
If you do run a business, as you say, then you should know that you don't leave anything on the table that you don't have to. In this case, it will be tens of millions of phones.
It shouldn't matter to Apple as to what system they are using, as long as there is a technical solution to it. And as there now is, Apple should take advantage of it, as their competitors will. Considering that China is becoming the biggest market for Apple, they must do everything they can to allow Chinese consumers to buy their products.
The Chinese government wants its own standards, as it doesn't want to be beholden to what they think of as possibly hostile powers. Whether I agree with their thinking or not is irrelevant, and so is yours. It's a fact, and it isn't going to change. To think otherwise is living in a world of fantasy. Companies have to deal with it. It's no worse than the other differing standards that exist now, and will continue to exist in the future.
Comments
That's one of the problems as compared to GSM and later UMTS operating bands. Even though LTE's E-UTRA air interface as a standard does put most of the world on a level playing field the allocation of spectrum within nations and within carriers is just as problematic if not worse as a whole. At least when the US had CDMA and GSM it was simpler for the consumer to understand that one phone wouldn't work on the other, but when they all support LTE but can't be used across networks because they don't support each other's spectrums.
There are plenty of sites that say Sprint supports the 800Mhz band. That's great, but that it's not very telling or accurate. According to this site that 800MHz alias supported by Sprint is not supported by other networks. It's operating band 26 which is combination of operating bands 5 and 18. Does Qualcomm have a way to cover multiple spectrums with a single power amplifier, duplexer, and coupler without a severe hit to power efficiency? So far I haven't seen it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
I don't like to be a doubting thomas so I can only hope that you are right and that it's a lot easier than it seems to add this support.
All I know at the moment is that Siri in Canada (for me) is 100% useless. It doesn't do any of the things that are in the ads and basically is only good for questions that you might look up on Wolfram Alpha. It also fails to understand even those requests about 50% of the time.
I tried using Siri dictation several times and for whatever reason, it didn't work even a tiny bit. I spoke the same sentence about 20 times in succession (pausing between each), speaking normally, slowly, greater and lesser enunciation etc, and it failed miserably every single time. The sentence was "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," so it's not like it was anything difficult either. I'm assuming that this has something to do with the language and keyboard settings which often cause problems if you use anything other than the American English stuff. This has been a historical problem on Mac OS-X so it's probably more of the same on iOS.
I should add that I have an excellent clear speaking voice and have been on TV a few times as a result of that talent. I'm not mumbling or mispronouncing anything in the slightest.
It is frustrating though, it is kind of sloppy and shabby of Apple to constantly ignore these kinds of problems, and it is true that most everything they advertise to do with language doesn't actually work for the non-US population of the world. I know that someday they will get their act together in this respect, I just hope I'm still alive to see it.
I'm Portuguese, born and raised in Lisbon, with normative Portuguese being my native language, accent, and dialect; and despite that, Siri has absolutely no trouble understanding me, not even in noisy environments. As a matter of fact, dictation has fully replaced the on-screen keyboard for me when I'm inputting text in English, with the only errors being related to my use of words that Siri is not expecting in the context of my conversations, such as technical terms. Regarding features, I don't see many limitations either. It can't tell me where I am or trace my way back home, but it does everything else, including weather forecasts and geofenced reminders. If you are not using the en-US voice (very common among people who complain about Siri), switch to it and your experience will improve a lot.
I don't follow every chip that every maker produces, but we can see, historically, that as time goes on, they do support more frequencies. Then there is the antenna problem. There have been some breakthroughs recently in antenna design, and Apple has patented some for themselves. So we'll see what the future brings. There is no throretical reason why they can't support most all of the frequencies required, but it will take a few more years.
Like most other things, we get into a snot about this, only to forget all about it a few years later as the problems get solved.
I'm sure I'll forgot some day but I'm still well aware of the issues haunting cellphones and the speed at which the market has grown.
In 2007 we had an iPhone with no 3G support. This was an unbelievably thin smartphone that looks clunky by today's standards. Apple was right not to include 3G in that first model as even the 2008 iPhone had a severe drop in battery life despite it's 3G data rates being very low.
As previously stated it was only in 2010 that the first penta-band 3G capable chips appeared. First in a Nokia phone and then the iPhone 4. Before Apple introduced the iPhone 4S there was no good world mode phone. The baseband chips are too large and power inefficient. Apple showed it could be done but there were plenty of sacrifices it had to make to make it work.
They offer 3 LTE bands in the iPad (3). Can they add several more for the 6th gen iPhone? I'm not so sure but it would be nice to see.
At one point they were using two radio chips. I think it's one now. I suppose, if they had the room, and battery life, they could add another again. There are really a fairly small number of people, even these days, who really need a phone that works everywhere. All the time. With all the data they want. As more people become needful of that, it will appear. Next year? Maybe.
The one thing we can be sure of is that the chip manufacturers are working their pants off to get this to happen.
Whoever does it first will have a VERY big payday.
Let China Mobile hurry to build out their LTE service in order to carry the iPhone, and let the other two chinese carriers get as many world-standard 3G customers as they can sign up.
China Mobile's 4G service is also home grown in the same way their 3G service is.
You don't run a business. If you did, you would know why.
I do, and I recognize that the design compromises required to support another radio would lessen the user experience that Apple insists on delivering today (size, battery life) . When a market segment is more expensive to support, it waits.
It shouldn't matter to Apple as to what system they are using, as long as there is a technical solution to it. And as there now is, Apple should take advantage of it, as their competitors will. Considering that China is becoming the biggest market for Apple, they must do everything they can to allow Chinese consumers to buy their products.
The Chinese government wants its own standards, as it doesn't want to be beholden to what they think of as possibly hostile powers. Whether I agree with their thinking or not is irrelevant, and so is yours. It's a fact, and it isn't going to change. To think otherwise is living in a world of fantasy. Companies have to deal with it. It's no worse than the other differing standards that exist now, and will continue to exist in the future.