Apple didn't make the iPad just "GSM".
Teardowns show that the optional radio board plugs into the main iPad circuitry.
So it's just a matter of changing which radio board goes in at the factory.
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Verizon Testing CDMA-Compatible iPads? Possibly LTE 4G?
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Apple didn't make the iPad just "GSM".
Teardowns show that the optional radio board plugs into the main iPad circuitry.
So it's just a matter of changing which radio board goes in at the factory.
I never said there was a report. I clearly stated in my post that I had guessed the exclusivity talks had broken down. There is no way that Apple was going to be okay announcing 3g rates and having them changed for the worse in only 2 months for their new flagship product. I think it's clear that something went on behind the scenes. IMHO, the change is that ATT has lost exclusivity and went back to their pricing model accordingly. We'll all find out on the 7th.
It is hillarious...
How many people believe any iPhone or ipad is coming to verizon and how many people keep spreading these rumor.
There will not be a CDMA device coming to verizon. Period. Ever. Not now not later. No iPhone and no ipad. Will. Not. Happen. Why do we have to keep hearing these nonsensical stories coming out so often about verizon getting any apple phone or ipad. Seriously it is NOT going to happen. Stop with the fairy tales! Enough already. Geeeez.
How many people believe any iPhone or ipad is coming to verizon and how many people keep spreading these rumor.
There will not be a CDMA device coming to verizon. Period. Ever. Not now not later. No iPhone and no ipad. Will. Not. Happen. Why do we have to keep hearing these nonsensical stories coming out so often about verizon getting any apple phone or ipad. Seriously it is NOT going to happen. Stop with the fairy tales! Enough already. Geeeez.
Correct.
It appears that the WiFi-only iPad is the same device minus the radio board (GSM/GPS), antenna, and a different back. That means the same manufacturing line could easily be converted to produce GSM/3G, CDMA or WiFi-only iPads based on demand.
If Verizon and Apple can agree to terms, Verizon will carry Apple mobile products.
Let's face it: Verizon customers' dollars are just as green as AT&T customers' dollars. Assuming that Verizon is willing to follow Apple's terms, Apple will increase shareholder value by opening up sales to Verizon customers.
Sincerely,
AAPL shareholder
Yup, you are absolutely 100% correct!!
And there will NEVER be an Intel based Mac! NEVER I TELL YOU! Not going to happen so stop with the fairy tales people! Enough already! GEEEZ!!!
Pwahahahahaha!
Haha...just like Apple will never make a phone or a tablet or an x86 computer or allow anything other than web apps on the iPhone or...
It's been widely reported that Apple first approached Verizon for the 1st gen iPhone and Verizon didn't want to go with Apples terms. Fast forward to now with the popularity of the iPhone + Verizons large user base and both Apple and Verizon stand to make a lot of money by getting the iPhone onto their network. Companies generally don't ignore possibilities that stand to make them large sums of money.
Just because they are all called CDMA, doesn't mean they are interchangeable.
All require specialized hardware for each carriers "version" of CDMA.
Not true. What is true is that not every carrier has compatible systems (frequency differences etc), but I took my CDMA phone to China and used it without issue. Not all carriers have compatible systems, but a lot of them do.
*Sigh*
It is not restricted to AT&T's frequencies. It supports the most popular frequencies around the world as a quad band device just like the iPhone. T-Mobile in the US could have used one of those 4 bands for their service in the US but chose not to.
I have used my 3G/3GS in Canada (where I live), London, Continental Europe, Hawaii, California, Nevada and Japan in the Tokyo area.
Was it their choice?? Or was it a limit based on the spectrum license they were holding from the FCC?
Edit: Actually, I'm fairly positive that this is what happened. It wasn't T-Mobile's choice, AT&T outbid them for 800Mhz so T-Mo got 1700Mhz.
2 CDMA carriers in the US and a few around the world is > a single carrier.
if limit to larger cities ( similar to ATT highest 3G coverage) then there is also MetroPCS. Which is rolling out 4G too.
The bigger issue here is likely LTE rather than CDMA. On the 700MHz range frequencies being used by the top two US carriers the FCC has rules about device neutrality. Have to allow other devices (not sold by vendor) onto the network. A LTE iPad would fall into that category so no reason no to.
CDMA phones can move between vendors. The vendors just aren't inclined to do the "hard" work to do it. (it isn't too hard. )
in theory it would also work on Sprint. At least the CDMA part.
but that brings up a good point, why would they start sales on April 3rd and then 60 or so days later release another ipad. why not one that covered both from day one. then they don't have to have two factory lines etc
It is licensed frequencies. Can only choose if available at a affordable price. It is not like they can just choose by simply setting a dial and deploy a service.
It isn't like there is one national license to acquire either.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/17130-t-mobile-comes-out-on-top-in-fcc-spectrum-license-auction
For some 2G coverage T-mobile and the pre-cursor to ATT had coverage sharing agreements. That dried up with 3G for T-mobile has much more geography growth to do than the other larger carriers. To get the growth in part went with the slightly less competitive bidding frequencies.
There is likely some additional software too; drivers for the radio interface.
( likely room to have multiple drivers in a updated ROM/Flash image, but just to point that taking current iPad and swapping boards wouldn't necessarily work. )
It's actually not hard at all. But that's not the reason they have given in the past. Their excuse has been that they will not allow hardware on their network that has not been tested and QA'd by them since they don't know what ill effects it might have to the network.
Bunch of crap.
We need a law like that one that opened up the telephone lines for any device (I forget the name of the law.)
Apple looks forward, not back. They won't do CDMA, they will probably do LTE + HSPA so it will work on HSPA with existing AT&T areas and on LTE with both Verizon and AT&T as they roll out their LTE. Great incentive to roll it out quickly. Verizon to get iPad and iPhone at all, and AT&T to not lose a speed advantage. I think all Canadian carriers are committed to LTE soon too. Then we will all get the faster 4G speeds.
Sure, a different baseband will be necessary, but those rumored CDMA engineers Apple hired a while back would probably be able to handle this.
Yeah, that's why they skipped Edge and went straight to UMTS. Oh, wait.
And most likely any LTE device for Verizon will be LTE+CDMA to cover the rest of the US population that doesn't have LTE coverage yet.
The have finished testing in the test cities in March.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/VOIP-and-T...-on-Track-for-Big-LTE-Rollout-in-2010-287875/
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/...d=news_view&newsId=20100324006187&newsLang=en
At what point would it be OK to roll out after finishing testing? They can take several prototypes to one of these deployed cities and drop them all into a single cell to approximate max out the workload. Repeat experiment in several different cells. Should not be very hard to complete that relatively quickly.
Likewise for the modem/handset chips. Qualcomm was shipping samples of first gen back in November. (MDM9200 and MDM9600 )
http://www.qualcomm.com/news/releas...-s-first-dual-carrier-hspa-and-multi-mode-3gl
and are now available
http://www.qualcomm.com/news/releas...ls-new-roadmap-gobi-connectivity-technologies
The chipset for headsets is likely lagging behind these but since don't need voice or an application processor the "modem" chipsets should work if can fit within power envelope. (since targeted at USB modems seems somewhat likely. ). The bigger break with Apple's past is working with a non European focused radio supplier.
Do you keep your unlaunched network in catch-22 limbo forever? There are no users so not put users on the network.
Sorry but that is what test units and test cities are for. Going through in a second pass with actual prototypes of end-user units is the next stage. May they run into backhaul issues as data traffic goes up? Perhaps, but that is an ongoing issue that all large networks have to deal with. It is almost never optimized across the whole entire network.
That's one way of doing it. However...
Usually when plug-in boards like this are designed, you code into them a common interface language so no radio-specific drivers are necessary.
For example, there are quite a few companies that sell ready-to-use CDMA and GSM and UMTS plug-in modules. Because this has been done for decades with modems, even radio modules often use a custom AT command set over the data bus.
In other words, it's quite possible (and I'd think quite likely) that the interface is fairly radio agnostic.
As for Verizon testing with an iPad, perhaps they're just making a MiFi or LTE case for it like Sprint did.
It isn't a law, just a FCC directive, but Google helped push for language that adds some amount of device neutrality agreement to the LTE spectrum bidding process.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/spectrum-reform
and http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-10314553-266.html :
"... The government has already begun forcing wireless operators to open up their networks a bit more. As a condition for winning some spectrum licenses in the 700MHz auction a couple of years ago, the FCC required the winner to agree to allow any device and any application to connect to its network. Verizon won this spectrum and has since detailed plans for its open network initiative. ..."
Not quite the same at the "must allow user owned phones to attach to phone network" change that opened up telephone headset market.
So the US LTE network devices should help make "exclusive contract" phones go away. Since the networks are suppose to be open to devices, proprietary contracts which subvert the intent of the FCC license should get those two parties in hot water with FCC. (e.g., not unlocking folks phones at end/termination of contracts. not allowing unlocked phones onto your network, etc. )
Ah yes...the Carterfone decision. That's what I've been looking for.
Unfortunately, for the short term, if they place the data portion on 700MHz and voice on whatever their existing frequencies are, they may be able to retain device exclusivity. Also, Sprint and Verizon can keep up their crap of refusing to activate each other's devices.
Ummm.... right.
Not.
Regardless of what the press and media parrot, it's not done and won't be for quite a long time. LTE is a big paradigm shift for both the operators and for the equipment makers, both on the infrastructure side and on the handset/device side.
Another thing I should mention, it's a damn secretive industry, wireless is. Oh sure, you might think you know what's going on, there are articles and press releases and trade shows, but there's another whole level of crap going on that people are totally unaware of.
I guess the part you're not following is where I said it would be wrong to base DECISIONS based on what may be seen in testing. Never said testing would be a bad thing to do. But if someone were to test on the day after a new software load went into the eNBs, or a parm change was made, or any of a few dozen other similar things, then they could get absolutely radically different results. Doesn't mean that LTE sucks, just means that it's still getting the bugs worked out, and that will take a damn long time. Look at how long 802.11N took to ratify...
More press releases, goody. More fodder for the people who think they're getting the whole story. Newsflash, not so much.
Verizon will put on "friendly users" if they haven't started to already. These will be selected people who will be asked to use the network and to provide good, solid substantial feedback on what they experience. I haven't yet heard that they've gone to this step. I haven't looked at their rollout schedule for a while, so I don't know if that's an indication if they're behind or not.
Again, this isn't about Verizon testing, it's about AAPL testing a LTE device on a real-world network. I think that would be fine, but with the network in its infancy, MAKING DECISIONS based on performance seen would be a mistake.
Fair disclosure, I have 15+ years of installing, optimizing, designing and planning cellular networks. Just so you know.