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Deutsche Telekom statement adds to speculation that iPhone 5S may support LTE-A (aka LTE+)

Samsung is so far the only company to announce an LTE-A compatible phone

A statement by Deutsche Telekom is adding to speculation that at least the European model of the iPhone 5S may support the high-speed LTE-A standard (also known as LTE+). The prospect of the 5S supporting the faster version of LTE had first been suggested back in July.

In announcing that the carrier will be launching its high-speed LTE-A data service this month, offering speeds of up to 150MBit/s, the company said:

Samsung will offer an updated version of the Galaxy S4 with LTE +. Appropriate devices from other manufacturers will follow the end of September.

Given the timing, some are suggesting that one of the ‘other manufacturers’ may be Apple … 

LTE-A is approximately twice as fast as standard LTE, which was only ever intended as a stopgap standard. Engineers had originally called for standard LTE to be described as 3.5G, arguing that 4G should only ever refer to the LTE-A standard. The engineers and marketeers argued for a time and, well, no need to tell you who won.

The iPhone 5S is expected to be announced with a fingerprint sensor and a possible 128GB model on 10th September.

Via Macerkopf (original German version here)

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Comments

  1. Petri Ojala (@petriojala) - 11 years ago

    What DT (and SK Telecom) do is LTE-A just for the fact that their are bonding bands from two different frequencies, 800 and 1800 MHz. It’s a bit like combining two WiFi channels from 2.4 and 5 GHz to get a faster WiFi. Works somewhere but the two frequencies do behave somewhat differently.

    There are LTE carriers out there that can already do up to 150 Mbit/s because they have a wide 20×20 MHz band available without the need to bond two narrower 10×10 bands.

    As many parts of the 5S has already been shown, I think we’d already know if it has enough internals to support it.

  2. This article is wrong. Deutsche Telekom uses LTE category 4 and NOT LTE-Advanced like SK Telecom does. SK Telecom is Bonding 800 and 1800 MHz to a 20 MHz wide Band (Carrier Aggregation), but Deutsche Telekom uses 20 MHz in 1800 MHz Band so DT doesn´t need to bond different bands for Cat. 4 speeds.

    Maybe that´s a bit difficult to understand, but LTE Cat. 4 has nothing to do with Carrier Aggregation / LTE-A.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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