“There’s been a lot of fuss and bother at Apple’s decision not to include LTE support in its fifth-generation iPhone 4S, but the anxiety is misplaced as it really is not the cat-bird-seat time for the tech,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“There’s some perfectly reasonable reasons 4G/LTE support in this generation iPhone didn’t yet make sense: For example, LTE is not fully deployed, there are some technology and battery life challenges,” Evans explains. “I spoke with telecoms expert, Vanilla Plus editor, George Malim, who confirmed the fragmented nature of international LTE deployment: ‘Europe is fragmented because of licensing. The UK for example won’t even be making LTE licenses available until next year. Almost without exception, operators will adopt LTE but we’re not there yet. Device availability is a major issue holding back LTE uptake. It’s mostly confined to dongles at the moment. LTE is in deployment in the US, notably with Sprint but the others are rolling it out. There’s probably more deployments in APAC (Asia-Pacific) as a region than any other. In Russia the four major operators are rolling out a shared LTE network – which will be ready next year.'”
Evans writes, “If Apple had included LTE support within the iPhone 4S, then it is likely the product would be more expensive (additional components) with lower battery life (the drain of managing 2G, 3G and 4G network coverage on the chip) — all to support a standard the vast majority of Apple’s customers won’t actually be able to use.”
Read more in the full article here.
Interesting news!
I was under the impression that this tech was already prevalent, specially since some android phone users brag about it!
They even go as far to say that AT&T Sucks!
Jees!
Anyone who’s actually been paying attention would know that full 4G LTE networks are generally a figment of many people’s fevered imagination. Most of those are typically US-centric, and know so little about anything that exists outside their own city, let alone state, that they believe just because they have a particular utility or facility, then it stands to reason everyone in the world must have it, therefore Apple are stupid not to make a phone that uses that utility. I’ve been to LA, and seen just how much space the LA Times gives to global news. Approximately one page. In a paper that must weigh about two kilos.
This has been well known for some time. (altough I admit I was not aware that Europe was even father behind than the US).
The problem is that most peaple don’t bother to do any research prior to buying a product. This is where Andriod and the carriers suck people in with , dare I say, false and miselaeading advertising. If you look closely, even some of the Android “4G” phones have the same theoretical speeds at the IPhone 4S. Apple simply refuses to put 4G on the phone.
Even if you look at Verizon’s own LTE coverage map, you can see it only cover a small percantage of the country.
Only NERDROIDS call their phones 4G enabled. It’s obvious we don’t have a global 4G/LTE momentum and to happen, iOS penetrated markets need to be aligned and consistent with LTE deployment. I only regret no to be live in the country where a great company doesn’t cease to amaze me with innovation, i.e., APPLE.
Just apply what Apple reasoned about 3G. If the network is not in over 200 US markets, it’s not widespread enough. If the chips are not mature so that they use too much battery life, then don’t expect Apple to use them. Only when efficiency and ubiquity are met will Apple use the newer chips. Next year should be about right.
Now that is well said. Nice. Glad to see some of us are paying attention.
Totally agree. Be patient, apple will get there, and they will do right the first time as they always do…..it will just work.
Hmmm… let’s take this delay of Apple’s a bit further:
1. Wasn’t there mention of a 65-mile radius of signals from an unused part of the UHF spectrum, the one used for television, which Apple wanted to harness?
2. Surely Apple sees the absurdity of the cell phone companies’ charges and in some cases insane over-charges, a business model that Apple finds lacking in customer satisfaction and user experience.
3. The first 2 questions at Apple when it began the iPhone business would have been, “Do we really need these phone companies? Can we make them dinosaurs?”
1 plus 2 plus 3 equals the new Apple Global Network.
Thanks for indulging me!
Won’t happen. Apple will take baby steps (see iMessage), but it would be far too much of an undertaking for Apple to either deploy its own network or somehow gain control of existing networks, even just in the U.S. Government regulations, anti-trust laws, not to mention the government-run telecoms of other countries, and it would never happen.
Not to mention that the technology would change so quickly that by the time Apple even had a U.S. network up an running, everything would be different and half the process starts all over again.
see movie= Wag The Dog
I could be wrong, but don’t we need to first standardize what constitutes 4G speeds? A simple minimum marker to keep the carriers honest. Maybe easier said than done. Anyone?
It’s a catch-22, LTE isn’t widely deployed because there aren’t enough compatible devices; there aren’t enough devices to implement the support.
I don’t see a Catch-22.
I have to wonder how many 4G LTE hemi-roids Verizon has sold to suckers who never actually connect to LTE.
Yes building out a network takes time and money. But I think Verizon’s plan is to have the phones in place, then the network.
There’s another very important reason… physical constraints. There’s a reason current LTE phones are huge, they all require separate silicon (chips) for voice and data. The OEM’s and carriers try to pass this off as the public wanting larger displays. The fact of the matter is, the current LTE chips only support data. Not voice. So if they’re using anything other then an ARM SoC from Qualcomm, these devices need separate silicon to support voice. On top of that, they need a beefier battery to support current power requirements of LTE radios.
There’s a great article on Anandtech that explains all of this in more detail…
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4925/why-no-lte-iphone-5-blame-28nm-maturity
You would need 4G/LTE if you wanted to watch
Netflix over your phone.
how does this news justify all the other 4G devices currently being sold and greatly appreciated by users?