14 DAY TRIAL // Amid recently re-heated rumors that Apple’s iPhone 5 will be packing LTE-capable chips, China Mobile has confirmed to the press via one of its managers that the operator is confident that the next iPhone will support the 4G wireless standard.
Mobilebusinessbriefing.com reports that China Mobile expects the next iPhone not only to support LTE technology, but also to operate across both the TDD (unpaired) version of spectrum, as well as the broader paired version known as FDD.
Speaking at a Mobile World Live webinar last week, Bill Huang, General Manager at the China Mobile Research Institute, said: “iPhone 5 will certainly be an LTE terminal that potentially will support both TDD and FDD.”
Those who are familiar with Huang’s comments say his statement should lay to rest some of the rumors about Apple’s iPhone 5 not packing the necessary hardware to keep up with the times from a wireless standpoint.
Perhaps not coincidentally, industry experts in Taiwan are echoing Huang’s comments saying that Nokia, Apple, RIM and Sony Ericsson are all “expected to join the LTE club” next year.
Mobile World Live also confirms that China Mobile has been striving for months to get a deal signed with the Cupertino giant.
In China, the single official operator partnering with Apple to carry the iPhone is China Unicom.
China Mobile’s Chairman, Wang Jianzhou, was quoted earlier this week as saying that despite lacking an agreement with Apple, the world’s largest operator by subscribers already has 10 million iPhone users.
The report also mentions a Reuters interview in which Chairman Wang allegedly added that Apple had promised to the operator to make an LTE iPhone.
This last account should be taken with a grain of salt as Apple hardly ever finds itself promising anything to anyone months in advance.