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LTE 4G iPhones Coming, But Probably Not Till Next Year

Forbes’ new technology beat columnist Elizabeth Woyke thinks a new Apple job listing on the LinkedIn networking site indicates a strong possibility that Apple’s next iPhone will include Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G wireless support. LTE advantages besides speedy throughput (the specification provides downlink peak rates of at least 100 Mbit/s, an uplink of at least 50 Mbit/s and RAN round-trip times of less than 10 ms) include low latency, plug and play, FDD and TDD in the same platform, improved end-user experience and a simpler architecture that will eventually result in lower production costs. The latter of course won;t be realized until it’s feasible to drop 3G support, which won’t be right away by any means.
The LinkedIn ad says that Apple’s iOS quality team is headhunting for a “motivated, highly technical Telephony Filed Test Quality Assurance Engineer with excellent problem-solving and communication skills” to join a team that will be responsible for testing and qualifying the telephony (ie: the phone itself, sms, data, etc.) functionality of new iPhone products under development, with particular emphasis on candidate experience in testing various cellular technologies like GSM, GPRS, UMTS, CDMA, 1xRTT, EvDO, and so forth. Other useful skills listed include strong detail orientation and comfort with working at debugging hardware and sleuthing out hard to reproduce issues.
As an aside, it’s reassuring to hear that strong pre-production debugging and quality assurance remain high priorities at Apple, further evidence that last year’s absurdly overblown “antennagate” issue that plagued the iPhone 4 after its initial release last year was one that “fell through the cracks,” so to speak, and Apple is intent on avoiding any repeats.
The Christian Science Monitor’s Matthew Shaer also thinks Apple may be fixing to release an LTE compatible version of the iPhone that will work with Verizon and AT&T’s growing 4G networks, but perhaps not quite yet. Forbes’ Ms. Woyke notes that Verizon Wireless is leading the LTE service charge, announcing last week that its LTE network can now be accessed by more than 160 million American users, which represents more than half the U.S. population. Back in March, Verizon promised to have LTE up and running in 147 markets by the end of 2011.
AT&T expects to initially deploy LTE “sometime this summer” (memo to AT&T — only three weeks of summer left): but is not operational yet, and deployment is not expected to be complete before the end of 2013. Sprint Nextel has a WiMax 4G network operational, but is believed to be pondering a switch to LTE, although that has not been conformed by the company.
However, with even market- leader Verizon’s network still only offering 50 percent U.S. coverage, a 4G/LTE compatible iPhone will still need to support 3G as well for quite some time going forward, which obligates the complication of incorporating both 3G and 4G chips in the same ultra-slim device, adding weight and bulk and negatively impacting battery life between charges.
Consequently, the CSM’s Matthew Shaer cautions that while an LTE iPhone is surely coming, it may not come this year with the new iPhone release hotly-anticipated for September or October. He reminds us that the original iPhone didn’t include then state-of-the-art 3G capability on their initial release, despite the fact that U.S. 3G coverage was already comprehensively in place at the time.

Adding to the 4G LTE iPhone buzz and speculation, Engadget reported last week that they’d been by an informant told that 4G LTE equipment had been recently installed by AT&T in a major Apple store, although with the qualifying caveat that this could simply be associated with long-term preparation rather than evidence that 4G technology will be included in the next iPhone, but the timing is at least interesting.
Looking beyond U.S. borders, LTE support is a mixed bag. It’s available in some major Canadian urban centers from Rogers and Bell Mobility, but there’s far from blanket coverage available, and some areas are still awaiting GSM/3G service.
The Register’s Bill Ray says that UK users shouldn’t expect LTE before around the end of 2013, or early 2014, although some countries in continental Europe, notably Germany, have LTE networks are up and running now.
Both Forbes’s Elizabeth Woyke and the CSM’s Matthew Shaer reference a report from BGR’s Jonathan Gellar that while he can’t confirm that the forthcoming fifth-generation iPhone will support 4G LTE, he can confirm that Apple’s carrier partners are testing iPhone models with LTE capability, having obtained evidence of a leaked internal iOS test build from one of Apple’s major carrier partners with a property list (.plist file) for LTE buried in its firmware, which he says indicates at least that Apple isn’t sitting on the sidelines while 4G LTE networks continue to go live around the world.
Takeaway? We can be confident that LTE iPhones are under development, but probably shouldn’t be holding our breath in anticipation of one being released in the next iPhone release.

This post was written by: Irfan Jam

Irfan Jam is a professional blogger, web designer and front end web developer. Follow him on Facebook