China Mobile, an unofficial carrier of iPhone, announced last Monday that an increase in the number of activations of iPhones since last Fall has brought the number of iPhone users to 15 million after the release of the iPhone 4S and a technical fix that finally allowed the smartphone to work on the 3G network of the carrier
Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, made a statement recently saying that the telecommunications company has been holding meetings with the fruit company to try and become an official carrier of the iPhone on its country and that the companies are trying to work together on the future implementations of a 4G handset.
Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, made a statement recently saying that the telecommunications company has been holding meetings with the fruit company to try and become an official carrier of the iPhone on its country and that the companies are trying to work together on the future implementations of a 4G handset.
In October 2011, the number of iPhone users in the China Mobile network were 10 million, in other words, in just a little over 5 months, the world’s largest mobile operator got 5 million more activations since the launch of the iPhone 4S, all that just because one single product. The demand was so high and unexpected that the Apple Stores of China had to delay retail sales because of a shortage of supply and an uncontrollable crowd.
The demand for the iPhone in China has been so strong that some Chinese have resorted to buy the device in the grey market at spectacularly high prices and activate them in unofficial mobile networks like China Mobile.
Even the fact that, because of a technical incompatibility, the iPhone can’t use the full speed of the 3G network in China, hasn’t dissuaded the crowd of Apple fanatics from purchasing and activating the famous touchscreen phone, though that problem might be eliminated pretty soon according to a report from the PDO newspaper.
The basic and standard chip of the iPhone 4S only supports frequencies between the 885-915 MHZ (called the P frequency) while the Chinese network works on the 880-890 MHZ frequency (called the E frequency), thus making the device incompatible and almost useless in the country’s main cellphone networks. According to the report, Apple is working on modifying how the iPhone 4S communicates with its GSM chip for future models after Feb. 8, and made a promise to try and fix the devices that were made before that time in the update of the iOS platform; this move will probably add even more activations to the world’s largest cellular network.
Even more, there are rumors of a potential partnership between Apple and China Mobile to develop a TD-LTE integration in the next model of the touchscreen smartphone. This new technology will make the device compatible with most of the cellular network of the world, including China’s largest one.
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