I believe I have a decent understanding of this article, however I was curious as to how the bands of this new iPhone compares to that of the 4s, and if it is a marginal improvement, or an improvement at all. Thanks

I believe I have a decent understanding of this article, however I was curious as to how the bands of this new iPhone compares to that of the 4s, and if it is a marginal improvement, or an improvement at all. Thanks

If you're talking about transmit power or antenna strength, I'm not sure, as I haven't looked at the FCC docs for the 4S.

If you're talking about global band support, the iPhone 5 is definitely superior. The 4S can connect to all the GSM/HSPA bands that the iPhone 5 can, however the iPhone 5 (A1429) adds in CDMA on SMR and 2100MHz, in addition to better HSPA capabilities (DC-HSPA+ instead of 14.4 Mbps HSPA) and LTE.

Well that sounds good. Is there any evidence that any of this, or any thing else included on the phone will take advantage of network vision? (aside from the obvious inclusion of lte) By that i mean perhaps better reception due to the antennas, or possibly better 3g speeds? Thanks again.

Well that sounds good. Is there any evidence that any of this, or any thing else included on the phone will take advantage of network vision? (aside from the obvious inclusion of lte) By that i mean perhaps better reception due to the antennas, or possibly better 3g speeds? Thanks again.

Network Vision's better 3G speeds and slightly increased coverage (due to RRUs) doesn't require a differently optimized phone.

Network Vision's LTE of course requires an LTE phone. CDMA in SMR (better coverage for voice) requires a phone that can do CDMA in SMR. The iPhone has both.

The eventual addition of LTE in 2500 and SMR bands requires phones to support that technology in those bands. No current phone does this. The iPhone is no exception.

Well that sounds good. Is there any evidence that any of this, or any thing else included on the phone will take advantage of network vision? (aside from the obvious inclusion of lte) By that i mean perhaps better reception due to the antennas, or possibly better 3g speeds? Thanks again.

Here are the first wave of NV benefits:

3G speeds will be improved on PCS - iPhone 5 will benefit from this

Voice will be deployed on SMR - iPhone 5 will benefit from this

LTE will be deployed on PCS - iPhone will benefit from this

RRUs will be on the cell site directly behind the antennas reducing signal loss by up to 30% - all Sprint phones (including the iPhone 5) will benefit from this

There are no phones currently in mass production that will benefit from LTE on SMR or LTE VIA Clearwire 2600MHz hotspot, so the iPhone 5 isn't losing anything on the competition there.

I would say that the iPhone 5 will benefit from NV...

Edit: you beat me to the punch...

Thanks again guys. I was going to compare and contrast the 4s bands with the 5, but i was on here and saw this article.

The big issue for me is no SVDO or SVLTE especially since other Sprint phones (ie. EVO LTE and SGSIII) now offer the ability. I thought about paying full price to get the iPhone 5 as an upgrade to my iPhone 4S but I am underwhelmed by the phones hardware and see no reason to upgrade to it. Oh well....saves me some $$$.

I'm confused. My wife wants an iphone. In a nutshell is this going to be a cabable LTE iphone in terms of IP5? Seems the list of nots is rather extensive.

I'm confused. My wife wants an iphone. In a nutshell is this going to be a cabable LTE iphone in terms of IP5? Seems the list of nots is rather extensive.

Yes. This device will support Sprint's LTE network. It will not, however, support simultaneous voice and LTE data usage.

Robert

TBH, kinda sucks that it doesn't offer SVDO/SVLTE... but being on a CDMA network for now almost 8 years... I'm used to that being the case. Not a total loss for me. Glad to see it supports the SMR band for 1x!

Could Apple add VoLTE support later on? It seems pretty clear the MDM9615 supports VoLTE and the baseband software by Apple does not. Could Apple add it to the baseband later on?

Could Apple add VoLTE support later on? It seems pretty clear the MDM9615 supports VoLTE and the baseband software by Apple does not. Could Apple add it to the baseband later on?

I'll answer that with a resounding "maybe." Previous iPhones have had baseband updates. However enabling VoLTE might require recertification by the FCC, since Apple specifically said that the functionality was not supported. If recertification is required, it probably isn't worth it for Apple to go through the process. If not, maybe it'll show up...

Some general notes/observations:

• S4GRU said: "So the AT&T edition of the phone is actually a better fit for providers like CricKet, MetroPCS and US Cellular...if not for the glaring omission of those carriers’ 3G network technologies (and VoLTE)."
  

• With respect to CricKet, Metro, US Cell, etc... It should be mentioned that their traditional roaming partners are the CDMA carriers.
  

• One interesting thing to note (as I mentioned in another thread) is the potential for Sprint to extract some additional roaming revenue from Verizon iPhone users thanks to the inclusion of the SMR band (assuming Big Red doesn't disable it on its iPhones). That could be an interesting turn of the tables as far as these two carriers are concerned, especially in rural areas.
  

• It's stooopid that AT&T didn't get the G-band included on their phones. I mean, geez, it's only 5Mhz more, can't be that hard to include.
  

• Crazy that there's a whole $100 price differential between the 16GB and 32GB variants. The consumer street cost difference of high-speed flash memory sized 16 and 32 Gs is like what nowadays, 5-10 bucks? Talk about some markup! Oh, wait, I forgot, there's a symbol of a fruit on the back of the phone, so it must be worth it! Plus, you get the pay extra for the omission of an SD-card slot... It's like Jeans with holes in them - you pay more for being stylish
  

One interesting thing to note (as I mentioned in another thread) is the potential for Sprint to extract some additional roaming revenue from Verizon iPhone users thanks to the inclusion of the SMR band (assuming Big Red doesn't disable it on its iPhones). That could be an interesting turn of the tables as far as these two carriers are concerned, especially in rural areas.

Obstacles to roaming tend to be as much or more political as they are technical. VZW wants to rid its PRLs of as many Sprint SIDs as possible and has done so for years now. I will eat my shorts if VZW adds Sprint SMR 800 SIDs and ACQ indices to its PRLs. That would be a huge reversal of direction.

AJ

I really do not understand why everyone is making a big deal out of being able to talk and surf at the same time. I have been doing it since my last two phones the Original Epic 4g and the original Evo 4g and I am still doing it on the new Evo LTE and Galaxy S3. I tested out both of my old phones when At&T was making a big deal over it when Verizon first got the I-Phone. I used to do it every day at lunch I would have my phone tethered to my tablet and my wife would call and had no problems and I could also search the internet while talking on the phone. This is nothing new on a cdma network.

I really do not understand why everyone is making a big deal out of being able to talk and surf at the same time. I have been doing it since my last two phones the Original Epic 4g and the original Evo 4g and I am still doing it on the new Evo LTE and Galaxy S3. I tested out both of my old phones when At&T was making a big deal over it when Verizon first got the I-Phone. I used to do it every day at lunch I would have my phone tethered to my tablet and my wife would call and had no problems and I could also search the internet while talking on the phone. This is nothing new on a cdma network.

The big deal is that the iPhone 5 can't do this on networks that run voice over anything other than WCDMA.

Have a question concerning the potential limits with the antennas.

Using a Bluetooth and WiFi aren't possible simultaneously?

For example streaming Pandora or any other audio/video using WiFi and using BT to stream the audio?

Is this a limit for all models of iP5?

This doesn't apply to 4 or 4S does it?

So if I am in my office and using WiFi to browse, a BT earpiece while streaming audio from call would stop all WiFi traffic?

All the above would work if using the 5Ghz WiFi band?

Some general notes/observations:

• What surprises me even more is that Verizon, with all the hoopla over their acquisition of additional AWS spectrum, didn't get AWS frequencies on the iPhone at all
  

• It's stooopid that AT&T didn't get the G-band included on their phones. I mean, geez, it's only 5Mhz more, can't be that hard to include.
  

To your first bullet point, why should the iPhone 5 include support for LTE at AWS frequencies when the FCC just approved it late last month? Do you understand that it takes months of testing out the antennas for the AWS frequencies and Verizon nor Tmobile has yet to deploy LTE on AWS frequencies so why the rush? Not only does it take months to test out the antennas for AWS frequencies, it would need to be FCC approved at least 2 months before deployment and the iPhone 5 has been in final production for at least over the past month or 2. I don't think you have an understanding at all at how complicated it is and its not just as simple as adding some band classes to a phone on the fly.

To your second point, why should AT&T have PCS 'G' block support for LTE? Sprint is the only carrier that has access to broadcast LTE in the 'G' block and is a CDMA carrier so it makes sense to me that the CDMA version of the iPhone 5 should only have band class support for the PCS 'G' block. I don't understand at all why you think the AT&T phone should have this band class included.

I think you need to do a lot more research to find out more about how band classes and phones work. I don't think anyone on this board is surprised that the observations you posted are not included.

To your first bullet point, why should the iPhone 5 include support for LTE at AWS frequencies when the FCC just approved it late last month? Do you understand that it takes months of testing out the antennas for the AWS frequencies and Verizon nor Tmobile has yet to deploy LTE on AWS frequencies so why the rush? Not only does it take months to test out the antennas for AWS frequencies, it would need to be FCC approved at least 2 months before deployment and the iPhone 5 has been in final production for at least over the past month or 2. I don't think you have an understanding at all at how complicated it is and its not just as simple as adding some band classes to a phone on the fly.

Ahmm, yeah, everything you just said might have a point if it wasn't for the fact that the AT&T variant of the iPhone 5 does have the AWS band. So that kind of blows away your theory on that one. Plus, AT&T got support for the AWS band despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge, like Verizon, they haven't even deployed LTE on it yet. Oh, and Verizon already owned a bunch AWS frequencies before the latest FCC action. The "approval" they got was for additional AWS spectrum they purchased from the cable co's (part of which they sold/swapped with T-Mobile).

To your second point, why should AT&T have PCS 'G' block support for LTE? Sprint is the only carrier that has access to broadcast LTE in the 'G' block and is a CDMA carrier so it makes sense to me that the CDMA version of the iPhone 5 should only have band class support for the PCS 'G' block. I don't understand at all why you think the AT&T phone should have this band class included. I think you need to do a lot more research to find out more about how band classes and phones work.

...

Why? Because adding the G-band means adding just 5Mhz to the tail end of an existing 60Mhz-wide band. So from a technical perspective it might actually be simpler to go ahead and create one device that covers 65Mhz rather than two devices; one that covers 60Mhz and another 65Mhz - since it is essentially just one contiguous band with no gaps and the addition of the extra narrow band is almost trivial from a technical perspective.

I think there are definitely valid reasons behind the observations I made with respect to the iPhone 5.

Ahmm, yeah, everything you just said might have a point if it wasn't for the fact that the AT&T variant of the iPhone 5 does have the AWS band. So that kind of blows away your theory on that one. Plus, AT&T got support for the AWS band despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge, like Verizon, they haven't even deployed LTE on it yet. Oh, and Verizon already owned a bunch AWS frequencies before the latest FCC action. The "approval" they got was for additional AWS spectrum they purchased from the cable co's (part of which they sold/swapped with T-Mobile).

So AT&T has LTE support for AWS bands....so what? Maybe AT&T begged Apple to add the AWS band and paid a lot of money for it because they plan to deploy LTE on AWS really soon even if it is only for part of the country. Verizon on the other hand probably didn't care that the AWS band was not included since their 20 MHz in the 700 MHz band is still sufficient at until next year and didn't want to pay the money to add it. Remember that in order for a band class to be added to that phone, that carrier has to have spectrum in that band so that it can be tested by the FCC and even then its up to the carrier planning to sell the phone on whether they want that band class tested. Now you might say, well why does the Sprint iPhone have LTE support for the Cellular (850 MHz) band if it doesn't have any spectrum to support it. Well that is only because Apple is only making 2 versions of the iPhone (CDMA and GSM) and since Verizon has Cellular (850 MHz) spectrum which at some point, Verizon is going to convert that spectrum to LTE.

Why? Because adding the G-band means adding just 5Mhz to the tail end of an existing 60Mhz-wide band. So from a technical perspective it might actually be simpler to go ahead and create one device that covers 65Mhz rather than two devices; one that covers 60Mhz and another 65Mhz - since it is essentially just one contiguous band with no gaps and the addition of the extra narrow band is almost trivial from a technical perspective.I think there are definitely valid reasons behind the observations I made with respect to the iPhone 5.

The G band is an additional 10 MHz, not 5 MHz. Apple doesn't care that they have to make 2 versions of the iPhone since the majority of the carriers in the USA still use CDMA NOT GSM for voice. I am sure what you are asking for has been pounded to death during discussions of whether to make just 1 iPhone or make 2 separate iPhone versions for CDMA and GSM and they concluded that carriers still want 2 different versions of the same phone. If you look at the HTC, Samsung and LG phones, they all have GSM and CDMA variants so why should Apple and the iPhone be persecuted for having 2 versions.

It seems to me that you are an AT&T customer that wants the G block support even though if the AT&T version had support for the G block, it still will not be able to roam on Sprint's LTE since NO carrier currently roams on each other's LTE since only such a small amount of spectrum is only allocated to LTE currently. Verizon only has 20 MHz for LTE, AT&T only has 20 MHz in some areas and 10 MHz in a majority of areas for LTE, and Sprint only has 10 MHz for LTE. It doesn't make any sense right now to allow LTE roaming when each carrier is still struggling to supply enough fast speeds for their own network.

So AT&T has LTE support for AWS bands....so what? Maybe AT&T begged Apple to add the AWS band and paid a lot of money for it because they plan to deploy LTE on AWS really soon even if it is only for part of the country. Verizon on the other hand probably didn't care that the AWS band was not included since their 20 MHz in the 700 MHz band is still sufficient at until next year and didn't want to pay the money to add it. Remember that in order for a band class to be added to that phone, that carrier has to have spectrum in that band so that it can be tested by the FCC and even then its up to the carrier planning to sell the phone on whether they want that band class tested. Now you might say, well why does the Sprint iPhone have LTE support for the Cellular (850 MHz) band if it doesn't have any spectrum to support it. Well that is only because Apple is only making 2 versions of the iPhone (CDMA and GSM) and since Verizon has Cellular (850 MHz) spectrum which at some point, Verizon is going to convert that spectrum to LTE.

...

Verizon, even before the deal with the cable companies was announced last year, already owned a large swath of AWS spectrum, plus, they knew that there was a chance for them to acquire more AWS spectrum from the cable companies, and they knew that nearly a year ago (in other words, they were actively pursuing additional AWS spectrum for LTE). Therefore, it is reasonable for Verizon to have wished that the AWS band would have been added to the phone (just like AT&T obviously did - even though AT&T too had not yet deployed LTE on AWS). Therefore, it is not unreasonable to wonder why it was omitted from Verizon's variant.

... The G band is an additional 10 MHz, not 5 MHz.

...

The G-band is an additional 5Mhz to each link (upload and download), located contiguously with the rest of the PCS band on each link direction. If I were to have counted both the upload and download links together then I would have said "add 10Mhz to 120Mhz" instead of saying "add 5Mhz to 60Mhz". in any case , adding 10Mhz to the existing 120Mhz is a rather trivial effort technically, which means that it is not unreasonable to wonder why did Apple not just go ahead and put LTE band 25 in AT&T's version rather than band 2.

Verizon, even before the deal with the cable companies was announced last year, already owned a large swath of AWS spectrum, plus, they knew that there was a chance for them to acquire more AWS spectrum from the cable companies, and they knew that nearly a year ago (in other words, they were actively pursuing additional AWS spectrum for LTE). Therefore, it is reasonable for Verizon to have wished that the AWS band would have been added to the phone (just like AT&T obviously did - even though AT&T too had not yet deployed LTE on AWS). Therefore, it is not unreasonable to wonder why it was omitted from Verizon's variant.

Yes I am fully aware that Verizon had a decent swath of AWS spectrum pre-Spectrum Co deal so yes Verizon could have asked Apple to add the AWS bands for LTE but they didn't. So what do you want them to do now? I mean just move on from it. Why does it matter so much that the CDMA variant doesn't include AWS frequencies for LTE but the GSM variant does. Right now everyone is clamoring about how great 700 MHz is and should be sufficient for the next year or 2. The purpose of Verizon buying more AWS spectrum from Spectrum Co is to get near nationwide licenses for future LTE growth which they don't need to add yet until 2013 or 2014. I don't see what the big deal is here.

I am sure the iPhone 6 or 5S in 2013 will contain AWS frequencies for the CDMA variant because most likely in 2013, Verizon will strongly considering adding some LTE to AWS spectrum. To add AWS frequencies to the CDMA variant when AWS LTE will not be launched in 2012 is ludicrous.

The G-band is an additional 5Mhz to each link (upload and download), located contiguously with the rest of the PCS band on each link direction. If I were to have counted both the upload and download links together then I would have said "add 10Mhz to 120Mhz" instead of saying "add 5Mhz to 60Mhz". in any case , adding 10Mhz to the existing 120Mhz is a rather trivial effort technically, which means that it is not unreasonable to wonder why did Apple not just go ahead and put LTE band 25 in AT&T's version rather than band 2.

Yes I know that the additional G block is an additional 5 MHz to both the downlink and uplink but you didn't really explain it that well so I wanted to make sure you understood that the G block is 10 MHz total. You would have to add 5 MHz (1910-1915 MHz and 1990-1995 Mhz) on both the uplink and downlink to be politically correctly. Like I said, I don't see the big freakin deal that the AT&T iPhone 5 does not have band class 25 when it is only Sprint that will be using the G block. Remember NO LTE ROAMING on ANY CARRIER EXISTS currently. Like i said before the only reason why the Verizon iPhone would also get the G block LTE frequencies supported since Apple is only making 2 iPhone variants (GSM and CDMA). So any carrier that is classified as CDMA (in this case Verizon and Sprint), Apple has included support for those LTE bands those carriers are currently deploying LTE whether that specific carrier supports it or not. If Apple wanted to, they could have easily made 3 different iPhone variants for AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint that contains only their LTE bands that they only support but it didn't make any sense to do so.

I think bottom line the reason you seem to be so annoyed about why Apple decided to add certain LTE band classes for LTE is that what you want to do without stating it out loud is that you want to take for example the AT&T iPhone and use it on the Sprint network or a Verizon iPhone and use it on the AT&T network if you switched carriers.

AT&T does not want their iPhone on PCS G Block. Because Sprint is putting LTE on its entire network. AT&T is not doing that. AT&T said repeatedly that it only would provide network wide rural LTE coverage if they received approval of the Tmo deal.

When Sprint finishes their build out of LTE toward the end of next year, they will have 4x the rural LTE coverage that AT&T has. And AT&T does not want their devices having the ability to roam on Sprint's LTE network. They would rather just say, 'our phones can't roam on Sprint's LTE network.' And they will be right. Because the AT&T iPhone 5 will not support the PCS G Block.

If you look at it, Apple specifically made sure the G Block was ommitted. It would have been just as easy for it to support Band 25, as Band 2. However, someone wanted it to NOT support Band 25. I don't think Apple would care, so that means it must be AT&T that wanted it that way.

That's my take on all this. AT&T doesn't want their LTE iPhone to have any ability to roam on Sprint LTE. Sprint's LTE is already starting to appear in places that AT&T has no plans to offer LTE. And that will grow more and more places every quarter for the next year and a half.

Robert

In a similar vein, the iPhone 5 doesn't support the 700MHz lower A block (band class 12). That's another can of worms that only obliquely concerns Sprint, so my rant...er...musings on that whole situations will occur elsewhere. The short version: AT&T doesn't want to pay LTE roaming revenue to anyone, and will hamstring its customers' phones (and its competitors' ability to buy phones) in order to avoid setting the precedent, or even the possibility of setting a precedent, on 4G roaming.

Have a question concerning the potential limits with the antennas.Using a Bluetooth and WiFi aren't possible simultaneously? For example streaming Pandora or any other audio/video using WiFi and using BT to stream the audio? Is this a limit for all models of iP5? This doesn't apply to 4 or 4S does it?So if I am in my office and using WiFi to browse, a BT earpiece while streaming audio from call would stop all WiFi traffic?All the above would work if using the 5Ghz WiFi band?

The actual quote was "2.4GHz WiFi and Bluetooth can’t co-transmit; 5GHz WiFi and Bluetooth can" In real usage, my 4S seems to work around this supposed limitation very well. Every day I surf on wifi (which is only 2.4Ghz on the 4S) while I listen to podcasts using my BT headphones. I also talk on a BT headset while surfing on WiFi. So I have a hard time seeing what the real-world limitations are. However, I am looking forward to 5Ghz WiFi on my soon to be Sprint iPhone 5. I have enough 2.4 Ghz noise at my house.