Just like our good friends over at The Cell Phone Junkie have been saying pretty much all along, the Wall Street Journal's own people familiar with those briefed on the sources are now chiming in with WiMax- and LTE- (Long Term Evolution) busting reports of their own.
[The next generation iPhone] won’t operate on long-term evolution or WiMAX fourth-generation networks.
Which has always made sense, given the proper chipset for lower-powered LTE won't be ready until 2012 and WiMax has no real footprint outside of Sprint.
Still, iPhone 5/iPhone 4S should support HSPA+, which AT&T, Rogers, et. al will still call 4G anyway... But that will leave Verizon -- and Sprint, if they get the next generation iPhone today as expected -- stuck on the slower, more limited EVDO Rev A for another year. Would that weigh into your carrier choice at all?
Reader comments
No WiMax or LTE for iPhone this year?
AT&t all the way :)
No I will stay with Verizon because it does not matter how fast the network is if you can't get a signal. I payed $300 to get out of my contract due to the terrible ATT service. :)
I'll wait until the next iPhone is LTE, I'm still good with my iPhone 4
My town got a new att tower :) Netflix loads so fast
I'm on At&t anyway but if I were on Verizon then I would not care about LTE at this point. LTE would only give them the worst battery life of all the iPhone users. There's nothing that I do with my phone that normal 3G can't handle. I don't even need the +. I FaceTime, surf, play games, watch hulu when I'm bored on a trip. That all works like a charm on normal 3G. I can even use FaceTime on Edge. Battery tech needs a little more time to catch up with the demands that LTE will place on our phones. Ask Thunderbolt owners. They have to have it plugged in to use LTE. Who wants tech in their phone that'll drain it in less than an hour?! Not me! I'm good!
Tbolt has awful battery life, the bionic on the other hand has great battery with LTE. Everyone wants speed regardless if you need it or not.
3G, 4G, I dont care because I'm on wi-fi 90% of the time (home, work, free hotspots) the only time I'm on 3G is when I'm driving and I'm not messing with the phone at that time.
I'll wait for the next iPhone, I'm perfectly content with my iphone4 and with iOS5 and iCloud it'll be even more amazing!
No, not really. Honestly, with the data caps, I tend to avoid using too much data. Faster speeds might be nice with no data caps (I'd stream a lot more music), but I'd just hit them quicker with the caps. The caps really kinda ruin a lot of the cloud features.
I'll be happy with hspa+ for now, as long as there is a speed increase of at least 50%.
If Apple fails to impress me with a new iPhone, then I know Google will not disappoint with the upcoming Nexus Prime on Verizon.
Every time I read one of these annoying TiPB rumor stories, it's 6 seconds of my life I'll never get back :(
i doubt Apple would let AT&T market the iPhone 5 as a 4G device......
Assistant should come to iPhone 4 via iOS 5.
I'd wait until LTE. Either way, I'm definitely sticking with Verizon. I'd get the best phone on the best carrier. The biggest upgrade that the Iphone will get...eventually, is LTE. When you can surf at speeds of 24Mbps on the dl(which is what I typically get on my 2 LTE Android phones...now that's an upgrade).
Yep, it's a pretty strong factor i'd say. When all the carriers have the iphone, it then comes down to best coverage & speed in your area. That's AT&T for me. That could change later of course.
For the whatever it is worth category, my wife has the Verizon iphone 4 and I have the Verizon Samsung Charge which is 4g. I sat at home one night and attempted to hit browser link buttons at the same time to compare the browser speed and surprisingly enough the iphone 4 was quite close to my 4g Charge. I can only imagine how fast a LTE iphone would be.
I don't care if the iPhone is 4G or not as long as it comes to Sprint in some form. Maybe that will eliminate the $10 premium I'm paying for WiMax that I can't even use, due to the spotty coverage all over Atlanta.
Apple would make a big mistake not putting in lte radio on the next iphone... people are hearing about 4g and lte and people want the latest and best phone out their... yes I know iphone lovers will still buy it but what about the average consumer that walks into att or verizon hearing about lte and how good it is they will pick the lte phones over the iphone...
why would you buy an iphone if you want the latest and greatest technology, Apple is at least one year behind, since they only put out a phone and update their OS once a year?
Apple with not LTE or WiMax is behind with technology...I might stay with Android if it would not be for all the business apps.
Fox news is reporting that the sprint iphone is wimax capable.