Prospective iPhone owners in China well could be in for a dose of gut-thumping disappointment ahead of officially securing the iconic handset after the country’s leading carrier, China Mobile, asked Apple to disable the smartphone’s 3G and Wi-Fi capabilities.
China Mobile calls for Apple to disable 3G and Wi-Fi on the iPhone. Image: Apple.
Citing a report from the Daiwa Institute of Research, Chinese newspaper The South China Morning Post has revealed that China Mobile has called for Apple to lock out 3G (W-CDMA) and Wi-Fi on the iPhone in order to comply with strict regulations imposed throughout the country.
According to the Daiwa Institute’s analyst report, the stripping of the iPhone’s popular connectivity attributes is a result of Beijing not yet delivering approval for the country’s handsets to function on such technology.
Enforcement of the regulations now leaves iPhone manufacturing partner Foxconn awaiting proper authorisation to begin shipping iPhone units with their W-CDMA and Wi-Fi chips locked down and inactive.
Tech watchers at Cellular News believe that China Mobile’s request is more likely a result of it constructing a 3G network aligned with China’s TD-SCDMA platform, and that having W-CDMA enabled could lead to China Mobile customers unlocking their iPhones in favour of adopting rival carrier China Telecom, which does run network support for W-CDMA.
Despite the lack of W-CDMA and Wi-Fi, the upcoming Chinese launch of the multimedia-rich iPhone is expected to see Apple’s handset experiencing a substantial sales boost thanks to China Mobile's 415 million customers, and also the population’s propensity for entertainment-based applications.
With regard to the likelihood of Chinese iPhone users seeking to tear themselves free of China Mobile, market research specialist In-Stat reported earlier this year that approximately 400,000 jail-broken units of the iPhone were already functioning on the carrier's network.
At the time of In-Stat’s figures, those 400,000 units equated to around 10 percent of the total unit spread amassed by the iPhone.
In-Stat also noted that around 20 percent of all handsets sold across China in 2007 were attached to prices in excess of 4,000 RMB (approx. $533 USD), which, given current iPhone prices, would leave Apple looking to attract a potential Chinese customer base of 28 million users.
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