“The next version of the iPhone — [Hudson Square Research analyst Todd Rethemeier] suggests it’s going to be an iPhone 5, rather than recent discussion of an interim model, an ‘iPhone 4S’ — will have 4G wireless only for the AT&T version, not for the one shipped to Verizon,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s.
Rethemeier writes: For AT&T iPhone 5 users, this could mean download speeds of 5-10 Mbps, compared to less than 1 Mbps for a Verizon user. Certainly, when an LTE iPhone is introduced AT&T would lose some of its marketing advantage. However, even when that happens, the phone will be backwards compatible, so the AT&T iPhone 6 would be able to roam onto the HSPA+ network when an LTE network is not available, giving AT&T an advantage in suburban and rural areas for several more years, we believe.
Ray reports, “I should note that Rethemeier observes that what AT&T is marketing at present, HSPA+, is really more like 3.5G, not 4G, but still it offers a speed advantage in the meantime compared to non-LTE Verizon connections.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Judge Bork” and “Lynn W.” for the heads up.]