Yesterday, with the usual fanfare, yet another new iPhone was unveiled. As with the third-generation iPad, Apple announced that the new smartphone would support the new LTE wireless standard. But in Germany that will not be much use to many customers, because the iPhone 5 supports only a specific LTE frequency band that, in this country, is used by just one network operator.
To be honest, at first I could hardly believe it. But Apple’s list of network operators whose LTE networks can be used in Europe showed only Deutsche Telekom alongside one British provider. “That cannot really be right,” I thought.
And now Apple presents its new do-everything smartphone, yet the European version – model A1429 – supports LTE in Germany only on this 1,800 MHz frequency. That is certainly good news for Deutsche Telekom: anyone who wants to use LTE with the new iPhone has to stay with the expensive DTAG provider or switch to it.
So alternatives are needed! And by now there are plenty, such as the Nokia Lumia 920. It also supports LTE and is not limited to 1,800 MHz. What do you think? In my view, Apple has ultimately made the iPhone 5 unnecessarily unattractive to many German customers with this approach.
