>AT&T Says 3G iPhone Coming Soon! (what’s a 3G iPhone?)
Yet another reason we Fools have been holding out to get our iPhone (aside from the fact AT&T wireless service sucks in Los Angeles). There’s been plenty of 3G iPhone speculation around the web ever since the iPhone was previewed as a 2G model and Steve Jobs said, at the original iPhone keynote, that a 3G model would come ‘in the future’. Oh, and we ain’t talkin’ about Gigabites for those of us who might be confused at this point. We’re talking about the actual wireless technology (speed/bandwidth) and the difference between a current 2nd Generation (it’s actually at it’s 2.5G stage) and 3rd Generation which will utilize UMTS technology, transmitting roughly up to 2 megabits per second (Mbps) of text, digitized voice, video, and multimedia.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported on AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, publicly saying that a 3G iPhone was due ‘next year’, although he didn’t know when or at what price.
What has been unleashed since is an entirely new wave of 3G iPhone speculation. All we know so far is that Jobs’ only 3G iPhone availability update was when he announced the iPhone would be available in the UK through European telco O2, where he said a 3G iPhone was coming ‘later next year’.
This would seem to indicate a mid-year to second-half availability timeframe for 3G iPhones to be unleashed onto the world, giving Apple enough time to get the necessary FCC authorisations and testing with 3G carriers.
A 3G iPhone would provide users the speed they need to get lightning fast access to the web, email, Google Maps, the iTunes store and any other iPhone app that requires access to the data network.
But as the iPhone is capable of using data at a fast rate of knots, should the user desire it, a huge question looms for consumers – will carriers still offer an ‘unlimited’ data plan for 3G iPhone users, or at the very least will gigabytes of download data be available as an option at generous prices?
Carriers have struggled with the nature of the ‘unlimited’ data package they are providing to iPhone users, with reports that some carriers who are carrying the official iPhone in Europe originally set their download limits quite low, and boosted it once the low ‘unlimited’ limits got some deserved negative publicity.
Data is generally quite expensive when access via a mobile device, so Apple’s ability to get good amounts of data thrown in with the iPhone monthly charges was a brilliant move. Let’s just hope they can still use their enormous leverage when it comes to 3G iPhone data bundling and pricing.
So, which 3G technologies might Apple use, and which one is better?
Another question for Apple is whether or not they’ll use 3.5G HSDPA and HSUPA technology on the new ‘up to’ 7.2Mbps standard, already available on ExpressCard and USB wireless broadband modems, and no doubt soon available built into mobile phones as well.
Real world download speeds for 7.2Mbps capable devices are 550kbps to 3Mbps and faster, while upload speeds are up to 1.9Mbps, with real world upload speeds of up to 1.3Mbps. These speeds are also much faster than EVDO networks, a competing 3G techology, can currently provide.
This new 3.5G standard is faster than the older 3.5G standard that transmitted data at a maximum of 3.6Mbps with real world speeds of 550kbps to 1.5Mbps, and uploaded at speeds of up to 384kbps, and faster still than the now old 3G standard which could download data at speeds of up to 384kbps with real world speeds of around 250kbps.
Still, whether Apple goes for the faster 3.5G technology or not, download speeds will still be blisteringly fast compared with standard 3G and 2.5G EDGE networks.
Most of Apple’s competitors already have 3.5G chipsets at the 3.6Mbps standard built-in, with companies such as Nokia extending battery life on the famously battery hungry N95 with a new firmware update, and extending it even further in the new N95 8GB by including a 30% larger capacity battery.
So, the technology is certainly now there to provide hours of power to today’s most advanced phones, and will undoubtedly improve further over the coming months and years, but with every passing day Apple’s assertion that 3G uses too much power is slowly becoming less true.
Using data on the iPhone when connected to a Wi-Fi network blows away the 2G EDGE experience all iPhone users are putting up with at the moment, so the launch of a true 3G iPhone is highly anticipated, especially by most existing iPhone owners who will likely upgrade in a flash and donate their old iPhone to a grateful family member.
I certainly will be upgrading when the 3G iPhone launches. Let’s just hope it comes sooner, perhaps mid-2008, than later, otherwise the iPhone will be the most advanced smartphone on the planet with the slowest Internet connection. This paradox clearly won’t last forever, but start saving your pennies now, for when the 3G iPhone arrives, you’ll want one!
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