14 DAY TRIAL // The new, fancy, 3G and GPS-enabled iPhone, unveiled no earlier than last week, was announced by Apple to be released in Jamaica, via MiPhone, the third largest mobile operator in the Caribbean country. This is not really a surprise, since Apple said from the beginning that the iPhone 3G would be available in a lot of countries across the globe, allowing about everyone to buy it (if they have enough money, of course).
The surprise element comes from the fact that MiPhone only offers CDMA services and it does not have a GSM or an HSDPA network. And since the connectivity of the iPhone 3G does not include CDMA frequencies, but only GSM/EDGE and 3G/HSDPA ones, it's very likely that the touchscreen handset won't work on MiPhone's network.
Still, Apple confirmed the release of iPhone 3G via MiPhone on its official website. This can have two explanations: either the Cupertino-based company has a "hidden" CDMA iPhone, or MiPhone will pretty soon deploy a GSM and/or 3G network. And while lots of users would really want the new iPhone to have a CDMA version, I assume there's actually no such iPhone. That's because Am?rica M?vil, the company that owns MiPhone, intends to roll-out a GSM network in Jamaica at the beginning of 2008. This would pretty much solve the iPhone vs. CDMA mystery, but it still leaves a question hanging: will Apple make a CDMA iPhone sometime in the future?
iPhone 3G will be, by far, the most advanced mobile device from the product line-up of MiPhone. The carrier's current offer includes only 5 handsets from Nokia, 3 from Motorola, 2 from Kyocera, one from Samsung and one from Palm (the Treo 650, which is now almost three years old). There's no high-end phone currently offered by MiPhone, all of its products being mid-end devices at most. Now, there's only the problem of how many Jamaican users will actually afford an iPhone 3G.