iPhone 5 release date sets up 2012 Verizon-AT&T-Sprint 4G LTE battle

from beatweek

GaplekNews--4G LTE is irrelevant in 2011, which is why the iPhone 4S doesn’t have it. It may also help explain why the iPhone 5 didn’t arrive this year and is instead facing a 2012 release date. Based on the television and billboard ads from carriers like Verizon and AT&T, one might think 4G LTE networks are everywhere, lurking on every corner, hiding in the closet ready to jump out at you, and any phone which doesn’t have LTE built in must have something wrong with it. The reality in 2011 stands in stark contrast. Verizon has built just enough LTE towers to cover about a third of it’s customers, and that gives the carrier the runaway lead. When we dismissed AT&T last month for not having lifted an LTE finger, they corrected us by proudly informing us that they’ve erected LTE tower in parts of five cities. And while the arrival of the iPhone on Sprint means that the carrier now plans to transition from its current quasi-4G network to an LTE future, that future is nowhere right now. That’ll have all changed by this time next year. But that’s why the iPhone 5 won’t arrive until things have changed. It’ll lead the charge in the 4G LTE arms race between the carriers, even though the iPhone has no LTE presence now. In the mean time, the competing LTE-enabled phones on the market are nearly defective by definition…

Why doesn’t the iPhone have 4G LTE? Simple: the worst part about owning a 4G LTE phone in 2011 isn’t that you’re highly unlikely to be able to get a 4G signal in your area, having to rely on the same 3G signal as everyone else instead. The worst part is that the 4G LTE antenna built into your smartphone is so large and power hungry that it’s taking up internal space which could have gone to other hardware features, and it’s using up your battery life at a stunning pace. Adding a larger battery might be the answer, but that’s not feasible because the antenna is so large it doesn’t allow room for a larger battery. So on top of probably not being able to get an LTE signal to begin with, your LTE phone burns through its battery so quickly that you can’t use it for much during the day or else risk being stuck with a dead phone when you need to make that important phone call. Worse, the inability to get a network signal makes a phone’s battery burn even faster because it’s constantly searching for it, meaning that an LTE phone burns its battery even quicker when it can’t get an LTE signal. That in a nutshell is the reason why the iPhone doesn’t have 4G LTE…

But the march toward 4G LTE dictates that the iPhone 5 will. As 2012 unfolds, the reality of 4G LTE on carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint will begin to match the hype. The carriers will build the rest of their towers, users will be able to get an LTE signal in most places unless they live in really small towns, and around that time the next gen LTE antennas will arrive which will be smaller and use less power. The iPhone 5 will see its release date right around the time those antennas become available in quantity, whether they come from a chip maker or whether Apple uses its own burgeoning chip prowess to design and build its own low power LTE antennas. In the mean time, 4G LTE is largely a hoax: downside to the point of impracticality, and literally no upside for most users as of right now. The rallying cry of “Wait til next year” is often one heard by Cubs fans or those who have no reason to expect better results next year but root for it anyway. But for those who are rooting for the rise of 4G LTE and want to use it on an iPhone when the time comes, waiting til next year is in fact a valid proposition. LTE should become realistic right around the time the iPhone 5 is leaving the barn. Here’s more on the iPhone 5. beatweek