Is Apple planning to make the iphone 5 support 3G and 4G services?
Yes they are According to Ashok Kumara (a analyst at Rodman & Renshaw). In a report on monday he stated :
Apples iphone 5 " will be Apple first iphone to support LTE , " or Long Term Evolution , which is begin marketed as a 4G Technology ..
This would also coincide with the time frame that John Stankey( AT&T Operations CEO) recently revealed . Speaking at a Bank of America conference the Operations Officer explained that AT&T is planning to roll out its first LTE network by the beginning of summer 2011. So it looks like it is possible we might see 4G on iphone 5 . AT&T believes it can cover between 70 and 75 million POPs (points of presence) by the end of 2011 . Stankey said that AT&T needs to continue to evolve its UMTS/HSPA network so that LTE-equipped devices can make phone calls. By itself LTE does not support traditional voice calls .
Ashok Kumar also stated that Apple will switch suppliers for silicon chip-sets . He expects that Qualcomm will supply Apple with a CDMA chip for a future Verizon iphone , and for the iphone 5 . The current iphone's 3G chip supplier is Infineon. The next iphone will likely use a two-chip modem , allowing the company to create 3G and 4G products according to Kumar..
It is begin said that iphone's competition is going to really heat up in 2011. Taiwanese and Chinese competitors are rumored to be getting ready to launch a bunch of different iphone knockoffs running Android .. Kumar stated "the price points on these knockoffs is said to be around $150 US.. Some of these vendors will attempt to leapfrog the iphone through innovations such as larger or better screen, longer battery life, and much more memory." It will be interesting to see if any of these knockoffs can really compare to the real deal .
So is next year too soon for a 4G iphone on At&T ? Please feel free to sound off in the comments .
source
[ CNET ]