Quad-band LTE chips? How will Apple handle this?

[cold war kid]

I think it's pretty safe to assume that Apple's 6th generation iPhone will be launching with LTE. The question now becomes; how will Apple handle all the frequencies all 3 major carriers will be using? Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have all deployed, or will be deploying, LTE on different bands.

Verizon: 750Mhz
AT&T: 700/1700 Mhz
Sprint: (when it deploys) 1900Mhz

Not to mention they will also still need a CDMA/GSM radio to fall back on for voice services, as LTE in it's current state is still data only. I honestly don't think any Quad-band LTE/CDMA/HSPA chips currently exist. And I don't see Apple manufacturing 4 different models with 4 different LTE frequencies.

Thoughts?

 

[Premium1]

I think it's pretty safe to assume that Apple's 6th generation iPhone will be launching with LTE. The question now becomes; how will Apple handle all the frequencies all 3 major carriers will be using? Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have all deployed, or will be deploying, LTE on different bands.

Verizon: 750Mhz
AT&T: 700/1700 Mhz
Sprint: (when it deploys) 1900Mhz

Not to mention they will also still need a CDMA/GSM radio to fall back on for voice services, as LTE in it's current state is still data only. I honestly don't think any Quad-band LTE/CDMA/HSPA chips currently exist. And I don't see Apple manufacturing 4 different models with 4 different LTE frequencies.

Thoughts?

I could see them doing it. I mean they already have various different iphones as it is now for each carrier. Most likely will just go to an iphone for each carrier.

 

[Adawg1203]

Apple makes money via the distribution of there product. So, they will ensure VZW, AT&T, Sprint and whoever else will have a device suitable for there networks.

 

[sting7k]

I think it's pretty safe to assume that Apple's 6th generation iPhone will be launching with LTE. The question now becomes; how will Apple handle all the frequencies all 3 major carriers will be using? Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have all deployed, or will be deploying, LTE on different bands.

Verizon: 750Mhz
AT&T: 700/1700 Mhz
Sprint: (when it deploys) 1900Mhz

Not to mention they will also still need a CDMA/GSM radio to fall back on for voice services, as LTE in it's current state is still data only. I honestly don't think any Quad-band LTE/CDMA/HSPA chips currently exist. And I don't see Apple manufacturing 4 different models with 4 different LTE frequencies.

Thoughts?

I don't know, I'm not an engineer. But I would wager Apple employs hundreds or thousands of them who's job it is to solve just this problem.

It will probably be some type of multi-band radio like they have had for a long time with GSM radios.

 

[Jeremy]

It's possible they mix it up similar to what they did with the iPad. Should be interesting to see what they do.

 

[ghostface147]

It's possible they mix it up similar to what they did with the iPad. Should be interesting to see what they do.

Especially in Europe where they use 3 different bands than here in the States. However they are behind in their LTE rollout.

 

[thebizz]

I don't see why Apple couldn't make one model phone that would work on all the different carriers I believe that was their whole reason for switching to Qualcomm boards. A single Qualcomm board could provide quad band gsm cdma along with the needed lte radios. or they could just run the gsm and lte chips in the gsm model along with a gsm let cdma model for the cdma carriers. most of the headache has been eliminated by the switch to Qualcomm modems so i think apple is in a good spot right now

 

[itsalexaye]

Doesn't matter how they do it, as long as they add LTE and still have better battery life than the other LTE devices out there.

 

[dmbeasley]

O, they'll do it. It's apple