Kevin Bostic
T-Mobile customers that brought their iPhones over to the carrier will see feature enhancements and perhaps even a data speed boost when the carrier rolls out an update on Friday.
TmoNews on Tuesday carried an image of a leaked screenshot showing a carrier update set for April 5. The update will bring features like Visual Voicemail, and MMS Settings, as well as "Network/Device optimizations that customers do not have access to today."
While unconfirmed, it is possible that these "optimizations" will give current iPhone owners on T-Mobile access to the network's LTE network. Currently, data speeds for iPhones on T-Mobile's network top out at 2G EDGE levels. The iPhone 5, when it reaches T-Mobile, will be able to take advantage of the carrier's new high-speed network.
Apple's iPhone 5 will make its official debut on T-Mobile on April 12, for $99 on the carrier's new UNCarrier payment plans. The OTA update for current T-Mobile iPhone users will go out to devices running iOS 6.1.x or higher beginning April 5.
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
Chip Loder
9 Comments
Some people think that the T-Mobile iPhone 5's that they will be selling are unlocked, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
I did some quick research into the T-Mobile iPhones, and it seems that they are not unlocked, until somebody has fully paid them off.
So, if a person needs a fully unlocked iPhone from T-Mobile, it looks like they have two choices, either pay the full amount for the phone up front, or wait 2 years until the phone is fully paid off, then it can be made unlocked.
LTE support for existing, unlocked iPhone 5 phones would be sort of useful (T-Mobile only has LTE up in a very few markets right now), but if this update also provides the new firmware to enable 3G over AWS it would make the existing (pre-T-Mobile deal) iPhone 5 far more useful on the T-Mobile network. AWS is T-Mobile's oddball frequency used for 3G. The carrier supports fast 3G in many markets that is comparable to LTE (which is why T-Mobile has marketed this as 4G). It appears Apple designed support for Tmobile AWS/LTE into iPhone 5 and you just need the new firmware to activate these features (along with Visual Voicemail and support for its MMS, etc.)
[quote name="Apple ][" url="/t/156776/unlocked-gsm-iphones-on-t-mobile-could-get-lte-with-carrier-update#post_2303800"]Some people think that the T-Mobile iPhone 5's that they will be selling are unlocked, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I did some quick research into the T-Mobile iPhones, and it seems that they are not unlocked, until somebody has fully paid them off. So, if a person needs a fully unlocked iPhone from T-Mobile, it looks like they have two choices, either pay the full amount for the phone up front, or wait 2 years until the phone is fully paid off, then it can be made unlocked. [/quote] Actually, you can pay off the phone at any point over the two year period, even after just one month, at which point you will still have saved $70 off the full price from Apple.
"Currently, data speeds for iPhones on T-Mobile's network top out at 2G EDGE levels." This is a totally false statement. I have been using an unlocked iPhone 4S on TMO and getting as much as 10 Mpbs down. TMO has HSPA+ and HSPA+42. It is the faster HSPA+42 network that current iPhones (including my 4S) cannot access. To be clear, that's 10 Mpbs on their SLOWER HSPA network. I imagine the speeds will be greater on their HSPA+ 42 and LTE networks.
I agree that the T-Mobile iPhone 5 is definitely a better deal than getting it directly from Apple, since you're paying about $580 instead of $650.