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Rumor: iPhone 5 supports HSPA+ '4G'

by Steven Sande Sep 29th 2011 at 2:15PM

Less than one week before Apple's announcement of a new iPhone or two, Japanese blog Macotakara has published a photo of a slide shown by China Unicom during a presentation at Macworld Asia. What's on the slide? Notes about an 'iPhone 5' to be delivered in 2011 that supports the HSPA+ '4G' mobile network standard.

HSPA+ is not true 4G -- LTE (3GPP Long Term Evolution) is. In the USA, AT&T advertises their HSPA+ network as 4G, noting that they're upgrading the system to "true" 4G LTE. The company just turned on LTE 4G in five US cities this month; Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft.Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. However, the HSPA+ network covers most American large population centers, providing maximum theoretical data speeds of up to 21 Mbps. That's about three times the theoretical max speed for the current HSPA 3G network.

Verizon does not have an interim network, but supports 'true' LTE 4G, so an HSPA+ iPhone would not work on their network. T-Mobile USA, which does not currently carry the iPhone, has an upgraded HSPA+ network that supports maximum data speeds up to 42 Mbps and coverage in 25 US cities. Sprint, the company expected to be the next iPhone carrier, is moving directly to LTE 4G through a deal with the controversial LightSquared.

The photo (a portion of which is shown above) was taken by a blogger for Japanese website PC Watch, and shows the evolution of the iPhone on the China Unicom network over the years.



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What's on the slide? Notes about an 'iPhone 5' to be delivered in 2011 that supports the HSPA+ '4G' mobile network standard
 

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Hackphone

All iPhone 5 Rumors From Day One Put Together In An Infographic
http://www.hackphone.co.il/singlepost-id-3636.htm

October 01 2011 at 2:56 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
Gary Merinstein

3G, 4G, HSPA, 5G, etc. if it comes from AT&T it's all Edge. In their largest US market AT&T's "3G" is barely able to achieve entry level DSL throughput, and even then it is sporadic even when the user is stationary.. It's the same as if California increased the speed limit on the Hollywood Freeway to 150MPH: you're still only going to manage 40-50MPH at best because their infrastructure just can't support the higher speeds.There's no reason to expect that any of AT&T's new ad campaign buzz words will make a difference because AT&T's end-to-end infrastructure is unable to handle the higher speeds.

September 30 2011 at 8:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mizbehaven

*twitch*

LTE Advanced standardized by the 3GPP is a 4G contender, it is not 4G.

The ITU has stated the standard speeds are 100Mbit/s mobile, 1Gbit/s stationary for 4G. Currently no come comes close. I believe the the closest is on the WCDMA side with HSPA+ hitting 28Mbit/s mobile downstream or 56M with 2x2 MIMO.

LTE release 8 can currently achieve 300Mbit/s stationary and it is the goal for release 10 to hit the 1G stationary requirement with the 100M mobile to follow soon after.

I know there is a ton of misleading media out there but 20min of fact checking would go a long way to make sure TUAW doesn't fall into the rut of, we just post things to sell advertising.

September 29 2011 at 5:44 PM Report abuse +2 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Mizbehaven's comment
Shannon Doherty

This is why I am baffled as to why carriers can advertise their speeds as "4G". Can't they be sued or what have you? I can't imagine any other industry where this is acceptable, like if you were to buy a car and it was advertised as being able to go 380MPH or something but it obviously can't. They've got to be liable for this false advertising and be in trouble, no?

September 30 2011 at 10:07 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Shannon Doherty's comment
Vignesh S

Unfortunately when ITU reclassified 4G to be including HSPA+, LTE and WiMax (none of which are true 4G as per the previous definition) that also meant that this type of outrageous behaviour could go unchecked. I'm personally hoping that the iPhone 5 doesn't call HSPA+ 4G; as we rolled that out here nationwide in 2007.

October 02 2011 at 5:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down
Shannon Doherty

Then why did the ITU reclassify if it's false?

October 18 2011 at 11:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down
archie4oz

If you're going to bother mention "true" 4G, then I guess it would be prudent to point out that LTE isn't "true" 4G either. Need to step up to LTE Advanced for that...

September 29 2011 at 5:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bjbjohnson

This shouldn't be a real surprise. I'm pretty sure I heard that the CDMA iPhone's chip is dual mode and supports HSPA+ so in theory if Apple had designed the CDMA iPhone 4 with a SIM card slot then it could have supported HSPA+.

September 29 2011 at 3:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
A

Didn't the 3G have a cap of 3mbps not 7? I recall that being part of the speed portion of the S in 3GS... not sure how reliable that slide is

September 29 2011 at 2:26 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to A's comment
mjreagle

Agreed.....I remember something like that also.

September 29 2011 at 7:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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