ChiTel Wants iPhone, After All

[Paul Daniel Ash]

After the company's CEO denied any interest in the iPhone earlier this year, a China Telecom official is being quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying "it would be good" if Apple came out with a CDMA iPhone. China Telecom, the country's largest WiFi provider with 30,000 hotspots, had previously expressed interest in carrying the iPad. If the company opens talks with Apple, it would mean a clean sweep of the three state-owned carriers in the world's largest mobile market - with China Unicom already carrying the iPhone and giant China Mobile still in negotiations - putting (at least potentially) all of China's 800 million mobile phone users in play. Yow.

China Telecom CEO Wang Xiaochu had said his company isn’t interested in carrying the iPhone because of the high costs and Apple's tough negotiating stance. iPhones are already available on the grey market through Hong Kong at a small fraction of the astronomical official cost. And a fundamental limitation is that China Telecom's network is based on the CDMA2000 standard, which Verizon also uses in the US. Therefore, any possibility of the iPhone coming to China Telecom would hinge on Apple finally producing a CDMA-compatible model. The "company official" anonymously told the Wall Street Journal's China Real-Time Report editor that "[i]f we can have an iPhone, that would be good, but we’ll just wait and see" if Apple follows through on long-rumored plans to produce a CDMA iPhone 4 by the end of this year.

The comments come after a flurry of remarks by the heads of the other two ginormous state-owned carriers about offering the iPad in China. The CEO of China Mobile, the biggest mobile operator in the world with over 500 million subscribers, said they were interested, and the executive director of iPhone carrier China Unicom (Hong Kong) states his company is actively studying the iPad. China Mobile uses its own TD-SCDMA 3G technology, though, so both the iPhone and iPad would need a rework to be able to use China's emerging high-speed network. A version of the iPhone compatible with China's sui generis WAPI WiFi standard was approved by the Chinese government, but has not yet been announced.

Source: Cult of Mac

[ctrobins]

Verizon probably went to China to get them to push Apple for CDMA iPhones.

[Lintrix]

Interesting. It would expand Apple's market by a ton, but then again, Wang was right, most people in China cannot afford to pay that much for a mobile phone.

If i'm not mistaken, Apple thought about CDMA but decided it would cost too much to develope.

[santacruzlocal]

Hmm ... 300 Billion people (Being Sarcastic) I think Apple could make a profit there !!!

[tudtran]

The rest of the world is using gsm. Apple is all about unify. I want to be able to use the same phone when i travel. I think Apple is seeing that too. Apple is looking ahead. At the d8, Steve jobs said he want think in their spring. CDMA is old school.

[wolverinemarky]

verizon will get an iphone and very soon if there making cdma phones for china they can just as easy do one for the US

[area51crypto]

The rest of the world is using gsm. Apple is all about unify. I want to be able to use the same phone when i travel. I think Apple is seeing that too. Apple is looking ahead. At the d8, Steve jobs said he want think in their spring. CDMA is old school.

h**p://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-gsm-and-cdma.htm

[Jahooba]

The rest of the world is using gsm. Apple is all about unify. I want to be able to use the same phone when i travel. I think Apple is seeing that too. Apple is looking ahead. At the d8, Steve jobs said he want think in their spring. CDMA is old school.

lol,

Meanwhile, Sprint and Verizon are moving on to 4G. Both are CDMA networks.

The Germans use CDMA as well -- and seeing how Germans are brilliant, I think I'll stick with CDMA.

[jih128]

if verizon gets the iphone , it might finally AT LEAST give apple a reason to stop giving us crappy "revolutionary" phones that drop calls when you hold them.

cdma iphone is the best thing that could happen to apple and its customers.

[domthebigbomb]

CDMA ftw!!!

[Happy Noodle Boy]

lol,

Meanwhile, Sprint and Verizon are moving on to 4G. Both are CDMA networks.

The Germans use CDMA as well -- and seeing how Germans are brilliant, I think I'll stick with CDMA.

So is AT&T. And be aware that all three of them is handling "4G" in a different way. The term "4G" is merely marketing speak. Sprint is doing WiMax while Verizon is doing some hybrid something in which CDMA handles the calls while a 2nd data network handles web and stuff while slowly phasing out the CDMA part of it. This will finally allow then to talk and browse at the same time. AT&T is doing something else I believe.

if verizon gets the iphone , it might finally AT LEAST give apple a reason to stop giving us crappy "revolutionary" phones that drop calls when you hold them.

cdma iphone is the best thing that could happen to apple and its customers.

CDMA is being phased out. It is old, outdated, and outright terrible for data. You will NOT see a CDMA iPhone. Ever.

CDMA ftw!!!

dumb posts without content "ftl"!!!1111one

[macsoldier]

I agree, I wouldnt see an Iphone going CDMA even if it was to verion