Imagine someone wanting to work for Apple, but saying “they’d have to pay me $1 million a week.” Sounds absurd, right? But T-Mobile is taking a similar tack in its attempt to sell iPhones. The carrier insists the tech giant support a little-known 4G spectrum, AWS.
Although available only in the U.S. and Canada, the Advanced Wireless Services band is needed by T-Mobile’s 3G and “4G” networks. Without AWS, iPhone users would be slogging through 2G or EDGE connection. In a statement, a T-Mobile marketing executive said the “issue remains that Apple has not developed a version of the iPhone with technology that works on our fast 3G and 4G networks.” Supporting AWS would provide “an additional compelling option” for T-Mobile customers, said Andrew Sherrard, senior Vice President of Marketing.
How the iPhone 4S’s description as a “world phone” would mesh with a technology available only in parts of North America is unclear. Apple currently is selling more handsets internationally, so why build an iPhone that wouldn’t work in China or Europe escapes me.
However, T-Mobile has a right to be testy. It has to watch all three of its major rivals — AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint — get the iPhone. Even little-known regional carrier C Spire has the handset. For a brief moment, when AT&T proposed buying T-Mobile USA, the carrier thought it might get the iPhone in a sideways sort of arrangement. Now the Justice Department seems to have put a kabosh even on that.
But T-Mobile seems to have given itself a way out, humorously stating “Ultimately, it is Apple’s decision.” Problem for T-Mobile is that decision was already made long ago.
