iPhone 5s/5c LTE bands

[theuserjohnny]

So in terms of the US are all the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models going to have the same LTE bands? So would this mean that if I had an ATT iPhone 5s/5c and I got it unlocked I could use it on another carrier (other than Sprint) meaning I could jump to T-Mobile/Verizon.

And could it be done vice-versa from Verizon?

Reason I ask is because my parents have upgrades for Verizon and they have no interest in smartphones so I was thinking of taking their upgrade and getting a iPhone 5c for a 100 bucks get it unlocked and use it with my pre-paid carrier Solavei (they use T-Mobile towers).

With the introduction of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c today, Apple has adjusted the various combinations of LTE band support for the upcoming hardware. Each of the new iPhones actually comes in four different models supporting different bands.

In the United States, a single model of each line supports both AT&T and Verizon, as well as T-Mobile, with support for Sprint coming in a separate model that is also compatible with KDDI and Softbank in Japan.

 

[CEmajr]

So in terms of the US are all the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c models going to have the same LTE bands? So would this mean that if I had an ATT iPhone 5s/5c and I got it unlocked I could use it on another carrier (other than Sprint) meaning I could jump to T-Mobile/Verizon.

And could it be done vice-versa from Verizon?

Reason I ask is because my parents have upgrades for Verizon and they have no interest in smartphones so I was thinking of taking their upgrade and getting a iPhone 5c for a 100 bucks get it unlocked and use it with my pre-paid carrier Solavei (they use T-Mobile towers).

Yes you should be able to take your Verizon iPhone 5C and use it on T-Mobile/AT&T and still get LTE. You can't do the reverse though and move an unlocked iPhone to Verizon since Verizon doesn't allow you to bring phones to their network that are not originally sold by them.

 

[theuserjohnny]

Yes you should be able to take your Verizon iPhone 5C and use it on T-Mobile/AT&T and still get LTE. You can't do the reverse though and move an unlocked iPhone to Verizon since Verizon doesn't allow you to bring phones to their network that are not originally sold by them.

Oh I wasn't planning to but I was just trying to get the point across

Well this is good news considering how last time with the iPhone 5 there were different models depending on the provider and then when T-Mobile came out with theirs they had the whole exchange for an "AWS (or ASW I forget lol) iPhone".

I was hoping with the 5s/5c they would just have one model this time around and it seems as if they have! Except for Sprint...

 

[BiggAW]

It looks like they have one model for AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, but as before, the ones sold as GSM have CDMA disabled permanently. Sprint seems to have the one with LTE 26 in it, which has far fewer bands. What we don't know, is if it supports SMR for anything, but they must be supporting that by now... The "800 mhz" for CDMA isn't specific enough to tell if it's CLR or SMR+CLR. Then there's the one with both FD and TD LTE, which must be for an international market.

Having pentaband HSPA+ and LTE bands for both US carriers is pretty cool. I would imagine that an AT&T one would work with Verizon LTE, because of open access, but it wouldn't get CDMA, so it wouldn't have voice/text. Having bands 13 and 17 together is also pretty interesting, as the Nexus 7 was the first device to do that, and now the 5c has that plus some.