China Telecom awaiting CDMA iPhone 4

Rumors that Apple and China Telecom are close to inking a deal to bring the iPhone 4 to a second wireless carrier in China may be premature. The latest report from Digitimes suggests the deal may be held up by the lack of a SIM card slot in the CDMA iPhone 4.

Earlier information from Chinese news site suggest this technical limitation was overcome by China Telecom engineers, but details on this achievement were not provided.

Vincent Chih, CEO of Asia Pacific Telecom, claims Apple will need a substantial volume of orders to modify the CDMA iPhone 4 with a SIM card slot. If China Telecom can successfully negotiate a deal with Apple, then APT will be able to offer the iPhone 4 through its close relationship with the Chinese wireless carrier.

APT is a Taiwanese cellular carrier that boasts of over 2 million subscribers and operates Taiwan's only CDMA network. China Telecom is China's third largest cellular operator with over 82 million subscribers.