China Mobile’s main man has recently confirmed that Apple could be working on a LTE-based iPhone, which is not a huge surprise, especially since we were expecting such a product on Verizon earlier this year. The new phone could work on the Chinese TD-LTE standard and we’d be really surprised if it were available in Asia first and the US later on.
Chairman Wang Jianzhou quoted Steve Jobs, saying that he seems really interested in LTE technology on the iPhone. China Mobile is deploying a specialized version of the LTE standard, called TD-LTE, that Apple will have to support on its next handset. Other networks are also expected to adopt this standard, if everything goes OK.
China Mobile has enough hundreds of millions of subscribers to create an important TD-LTE market on its own, without the involvement of other carriers. This type of connectivity is expected to debut this year and it seems the carrier is already working with Verizon and Vodafone on LTE trials.
China Telecom and China Unicom, its rivals will deploy such networks between 2012 and 2013.
