David Boettger

China Mobile, Apple Butt Heads Over iPhone

reinharden: Nearly all GSM base stations are capable of GPRS, but they aren't necessarily capable of EDGE. iPhone usability (such as it is) is dependent on EDGE, which Unicom doesn't have. In order to be commercially-viable under the Unicom brand, the iPhone would need to be both CDMA/EVDO-capable and SIM-enabled, as David stated. As CDMA/EVDO has one foot in the grave, and presuming that EDGE won't be launched on Unicom's GSM network (until the net is hived off to Telecom or Netcom), a Unicom-Apple pair-up just in the cards which, I think, was David's main point.