iPhone 5 incompatible with LTE in France
Friday 14 September 2012 | 09:20 CET | News
The iPhone 5 does not support the 800Mhz and 2,600MHz spectrum allocated to French operators planning to launch commercial LTE services in early 2013. Apple's new smartphone, set be released on 21 September, uses the 1,800MHz band, which is assigned to 2G mobile services in France. Les Echos writes that they operators have to wait for later versions of the iPhone to be released with 800MHz and 2,600 MHz support before selling an LTE iPhone. Another scenario would be for the 1,800MHz band to be refarmed to LTE. The country's third mobile operator, Bouygues Telecom, has asked regulator Arcep to allow it to convert its 1,800MHz spectrum from 2G to LTE and a decision is expected by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Les Echos has learned that Samsung will release an LTE version of its Galaxy S3 smartphone in France as soon as November. By supporting 800MHz, 1,800MHz and 2,600MHz, the Galaxy S3 will be "the mobile broadband smartphone for Christmas", according to the newspaper.
http://www.telecompaper.com/news/iphone-5-incompatible-with-lte-in-france
法國也遭遇同樣問題!
法國政府釋出的LTE是800和2600MHz,現在法國第三大的Bouygues Telecom要求政府允許其重新利用現有的2G 1800MHz來架設LTE。
這回iPhone 5的問市看來對LTE業者的布局產生了不小的影響。但對於許多2G是跑900MH以及LTE跑800/2600MHz的業者,只能乖乖等待Apple推出新款可支援其LTE頻段的版本了。
既然全球已有不少國家/業者是重新利用2G 1800MHz頻段來架設LTE,我相信台灣也可以採用相同的方式(電信三雄全都有全台GSM 1800MHz使用執照),最終問題只是在於政府開放程序/時程,以及2017年使用1800MHz時限到期後能否續用以及費用問題。