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iPhone 5s/5c LTE Band Tweaks Combine AT&T and Verizon in One Model, Add China Mobile
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This site is stating that the "unlocked" iphone will only work on ATT or Tmobile, not Verizon.
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/09/10/unlocked-prices-for-iphone-5c-start-at-549-iphone-5s-at-649/
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/09/10/unlocked-prices-for-iphone-5c-start-at-549-iphone-5s-at-649/
Consolidating....
the ATT and Verizon models in one can reduce costs and enabling the new iPhone to support the China LTE band (on selected carriers) are good financial and comercial moves. Well done Apple.....!......
Hand of Tim in this.....
the ATT and Verizon models in one can reduce costs and enabling the new iPhone to support the China LTE band (on selected carriers) are good financial and comercial moves. Well done Apple.....!......
Hand of Tim in this.....
Verizon has some SVDO phones, like the galaxy s3. Every LTE phone on Verizon can use LTE for data and 3G for calls except the iPhone.
The EU has coordinated the 800 MHz (band 20) to be the pan-European frequency designated for LTE across all EU members. Other bands can be used (and already are) in addition but this is the one that manufacturers can be certain to work in all states.
That is why operators in the UK such as O2, Vodafone, Three and EE have started (or are planning to) using that band for LTE. It is also why phone manufacturers are now making sure that any model destined for Europe supports 800 MHz in addition to some other bands.
You can see that iPhone models A1507 (iPhone 5c) and A1457 (iPhone 5s) are aimed at European customers, they work on all European networks. This list will get updated with more operators in the next months as the models go on sale in various European countries.
Apple doesn't like using more then one radio at a time. It's why the AT&T model drops to 3G data for calls.
Yeah, that's how it has always been. The unlocked model is meant for GSM only.
My question was: Since the Tmobile/ATT/Verizon iphone 5 are the same model, does this mean that the they will all come unlocked? Or is it only the verizon ones that will come unlocked?
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I think I was confusing myself yesterday. I read that the ATT/Verizon/Tmobile iphones are the same model and assumed that this meant that that iphone 5s will not come unlocked for verizon. I neglected the fact that the Sprint and Verizon iPhone 5 are the same model and the sprint one is not unlocked and verizon is. My mistake.
So nothing should change. Verizon iPhone 5s/5c models should still be unlocked and these should work on LTE now on AT&T and Tmobile as well.
As has been said, this is not a limit of verizon, but is rather a limit of the iPhone. My razr maxx has no problem talking and surfing at the same time on 4g.
Can anyone confirm that the new VZW version of the iPhone will support simultaneous LTE data and CDMA calling? As has been made clear previously, the iPhone is the only Verizon smartphone that can't do this, due to Apple's design - they didn't want two radios at the same time. Perhaps this new band tweaking will fix that.
It's the only thing keeping me on AT&T right now.
It's the only thing keeping me on AT&T right now.
The real Question:
Can we talk and surf with Verizon or not?
I was not planning to upgrade, but if someone can confirm then I will upgrade to 5S from 5.
Can we talk and surf with Verizon or not?
I was not planning to upgrade, but if someone can confirm then I will upgrade to 5S from 5.
That's what I'm afraid of... I'll wait for some "official" word from T-Mobile, but it looks like I'm hanging on to my venerable HTC One for another year: if I'm not going to be on the LTE-Advanced network, I'd rather not shell out a bunch of money for a new iPhone right now.
Well, you can always upgrade and if it doesn't pan out to what you need or like, you can return to VZW within 14 days and keep your upgrade.
I always thought T-Mobile's upgrade path was letting LTE take-over AWS and slowly moving the HSPA+ that's there to 1900 as it sunsets GSM.
Well, it depends who you want to blame. It most certainly is a limit of Verizon(CMDA), but other phones have done things to work around the limitation and Apple -to date- has not.
As I understand it, the only way to have a CDMA(Verizon) voice call and and an LTE data session at the same time is to power up two radios simultaneously, which some other phones, like the razr maxx, do. This impacts battery life and requires other engineering compromises, which Apple has so far been unwilling to make.
So, is it the fault of Verizon's CDMA network? Yes absolutely it is. If Verizon were to change to GSM, or were to enable voice over LTE, then the iPhone 5 and earlier iPhones could do both at the same time.
This problem does not exist with AT&T on an iPhone because TDMA/GSM can have a phone and data channel open at the same time on the same radio/session.
CDMA also creates other wonkiness with how call waiting/conference calls work as well, issues which do not occur with TDMA/GSM.
Is it also Apple's fault? Well yes, sort of, other phones can do it. Apple could design around the limitation by powering two radios at once, one for CDMA voice and one for data. In the past, they have said that it required engineering & design compromises that that are unwilling to make.
My guess is that at this point Apple is no more likely to engineer a kludge for this CDMA limitation than they are to support Adobe Flash.
I would love to be wrong on this, maybe Apple has given in, or maybe Verizon is getting it's act together on Voice over LTE.
Anyone know for sure?
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Come on people! Most of these questions can be answered by actually going to apple.com.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/
It's actually not really clear at all since the bands are all the same. On the iPhone 5 chart it was simple the bands were different.
What do you mean? The chart clearly shows the AT&T version doesn't have band 7 which is used on European carriers.
EE uses 1800 band 3... And the fine print says it could work but no guarantee so I was popping the question to the group... It's okay if you don't know
the list that apple is providing is very confusing and leaves so many questions unanswered!
best example: look at the 3rd (Europe) and 4th (Asia/Pacific) iPhone 5s options:
A1457 has bands 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20
A1530 has bands 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 38, 39, 40
why don't they just sell A1530 in both regions?
There must be some other difference between the models. Maybe manufacturing the antenna design with more bands is more complicated and expensive (though I really doubt that), or maybe they want to limit specific Phones to specific geographical regions either to stop skalpers from buying iPhones for regions where they are more expensive or to simply make you buy a new phone when you move to a new country if it's in a different geographical region (to generate sales?)
I guess we will have to wait for users to actually try out putting a sim into the "wrong" iPhone model and test the LTE speeds
best example: look at the 3rd (Europe) and 4th (Asia/Pacific) iPhone 5s options:
A1457 has bands 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20
A1530 has bands 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 38, 39, 40
why don't they just sell A1530 in both regions?
There must be some other difference between the models. Maybe manufacturing the antenna design with more bands is more complicated and expensive (though I really doubt that), or maybe they want to limit specific Phones to specific geographical regions either to stop skalpers from buying iPhones for regions where they are more expensive or to simply make you buy a new phone when you move to a new country if it's in a different geographical region (to generate sales?)
I guess we will have to wait for users to actually try out putting a sim into the "wrong" iPhone model and test the LTE speeds
It looks like in the U.S., most of Europe, and almost everywhere else, there is at least one carrier (sometimes more) that support LTE bands 3 or 7. So, it looks like all the GSM-only phones could be used almost anywhere if you are willing to switch carriers, since they all support bands 3 and 7? Is this true?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks
http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/
The press is making much of China because China Mobile uses TDD rather than FDD. However, in most regions there seems to be at least one carrier that uses TDD, and, Apple doesn't sell anything different for those regions, so, I have to assume that all of these phones already support both TDD as well as FDD.
However, China Mobile uses LTE bands 38, 39, and 40, and, not every phone supports those bands. In this case, only the A1529/A1530 seem to support those bands.
So, the modified question is where will the A1529/A1530 not work? They do support bands 3 and 7.
Edit: Apparently the issue with China Mobile is a proprietary version of 3G that they use:
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319456
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I just went and looked up the SAR reports at the FCC. Not only did they not list CDMA and LTE (SVLTE) as a test combination, they actually wrote a letter about it (E2642A is the CDMA version):
They probably don't have room for another antenna, especially on the aluminum backed iPhone 5. Right now, the only all metal phone using its own case back as antennas is the HTC One.
Unlike Verizon, AT&T cannot do voice and LTE at the same time.
Currently, GSM phones drop back to UMTS-3G when you want to use voice and data simultaneously.