Yesterday the Wall Street Journal said that iPhone 5 will be compatible with international 4G LTE networks, but it was not specified on which of these networks the device will work, but you can see it in the map above present the countries where the networks exist/will be launched LTE 4G and you can imagine what Apple proposed. The map was updated in May, and the colors on it represent: red - countries that have commercial networks in operation; dark blue – countries that have commercial networks ready for launch; light blue – countries where network tests have started; gray - countries where there are no launched or developing LTE networks.
As you can see, many developed countries have active networks or are in the process of being launched, but the problem is that at the moment there are 41 different bands on which the networks operate. Fragmentation is very large among these networks, and at the moment no baseband chip is able to support them all, and those from Qualcomm say that it is not known when exactly such a product will exist. For now, the baseband chips support a maximum of 5 frequencies 4G LTE, so not even a quarter of the total available globally.
Considering this diversity of networks, with which of them will it be iPhone 5 compatible? Well, we know for sure that the USA and Canada have networks compatible with the iPhone 5, and if the baseband chip in the terminal supports 5 frequencies, then 2 of them are occupied by the networks of the USA and Canada, plus those of other similar operators, and the rest remain for Europe and Asia. In South Korea, where Apple would have already negotiated the launch of an iPhone 5 compatible with 4G LTE networks, 800 MHz and 1.8 GHz bands are used, in Great Britain, and probably in many European countries, it will be used also the 1.8 GHz band, so there is only one band that is used either by other operators from Europe, or by some from Asia.
Basically, the iPhone 5 would be compatible with the 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz frequencies of the 4G LTE networks, and Apple would cover most of the countries that have active networks, but also a good part of the countries that are going to launch others. In Romania, the 800 MHz band would be used for at least part of the 4G LTE networks, so we will be able to use iDevices without problems in the future. iPhone 5 will not be compatible with every network on the globe, but the most important countries for Apple will have compatible networks, but it remains to be seen when they will be launched.
