It’s no secret that wireless carriers want the iPhone on their networks, and until last year if you wanted an iPhone in the U.S., AT&T was your only official choice.
However 2011 brought us the CDMA iPhone 4 for Verizon, and later on the iPhone 4S was released with full support for GSM along with CDMA, allowing carriers like Sprint to begin offering the device as well.
But T-Mobile USA has yet to bring the iPhone to their network in any official capacity, in part because their 3G network uses a different radio frequency band than AT&T and the rest of the world, one that current iPhone hardware does not support.
Unlocked iPhone owners will be quite familiar with this limitation, as unlocked devices built for AT&T’s network will fall back to 2G EDGE service when used with a T-Mobile USA sim card. Read more
Regional carriers in the U.S. unveil iPhone support
Today marks the launch of the iPhone on 5 regional wireless carriers in the U.S.:
A quick look at the front page of any of those companies would suggest the iPhone is a big deal to them, and it is.
The iPhone has been a significant factor in the growth or decline of wireless subscriber numbers for other carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, the last of which has yet to gain access to the iPhone and has acknowledged losing subscribers as a result.
T-Mobile remains willing to carry the iPhone, and has even gone so far as to publicly announce support for unlocked AT&T iPhones. Of course, the practice of using an unlocked AT&T iPhone on T-Mobiles network is not new, and speeds remain limited to the slower 2G network due to wireless band differences. Read more