Ever since the release of the CDMA version of the iPhone 4, it has been rumored that the next generation of the terminal will have a baseband chip that will work with both GSM and CDMA networks. If until now we have only had rumors that were not supported by concrete data, here it is TechCrunch published an article last night that presents the information obtained by the developers of some of the most popular applications in the App Store. It seems that entries have been discovered in the application logs that indicate that the iPhone 5 is now being tested by Apple engineers and according to the same logs the device can work both on the AT&T network and on the Verizon network. The discovery was made by developers comparing application logs and noticing that iPhones with the same UDID were registered on both networks of mobile operators.
The logs show that the app has been briefly tested by a handful of people using what is almost certainly an iPhone 5, obviously running iOS 5, sporting two distinct sets of mobile network codes (MNC) / mobile country codes (MCC). Those codes can be used to uniquely identify mobile carriers.
Sure enough, some registrations for the app – which the developer also asked not to be named – were logged from a new Apple device, using the MNC/MCC codes from both Verizon and AT&T.
A "universal" iPhone 5 would represent a very, very big advantage for Apple but also for users because the barriers that separated the mobile phone operators will be removed. Such a terminal can be used in any network without any problem and it will be interesting to see if it contains a universal SIM with information about each individual operator. Such a device should be sold decoded to work in any network, but if this does not happen then decoding will probably prove to be quite difficult. Until further notice, we are waiting for the announcement of the conference for the presentation of iOS 5 and iPhone 5.
