iPhone 4S (CDMA) to be launched by China Telecom in February or March
By Vlad Bobleanta on 01 Feb 12The iPhone 4S has been available in China since late last month. That said, you can only officially get it in Apple stores or from China Unicom, which has always been the only carrier to sell the iPhone in China. At first it was a simple matter of network tech used. One of the other big Chinese carriers is China Mobile, which uses TD-SCDMA for its 3G network, a standard that isn’t used anywhere else in the world and, needless to say, no iPhone has supported so far. The other big gun in China is China Telecom, which uses the CDMA standard which may be familiar to you because it’s also what Verizon and Sprint use for 3G in the States.
So now that Verizon got its iPhone, it would seem logical that China Telecom would want in on the action. After all, it would be selling the same SKU as Big Red.
And indeed, China Telecom and Apple have agreed on the carrier starting sales of the iPhone 4S. However, one last hurdle remained: to be able to sell that device in China, three different operating licenses were required. In mid-January, Apple received the last of them, so now it’s all up to China Telecom.
The carrier is apparently doing some preparatory work for the launch of the iPhone 4S (whatever that may mean). The Apple smartphone is expected to arrive in China Telecom stores in February or early March at the latest.
Unfortunately we don’t have any pricing details yet. However, having the iPhone on two different carriers for the first time may spur some competition in China. And if China Telecom wants to gain customers fast it will surely undercut China Unicom’s pricing for the iPhone.
Anyway, if you’re in China and haven’t bought an iPhone 4S yet, perhaps you should wait a month or so tops and see what China Telecom has to offer before you go and buy from China Unicom.
Via China Daily
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- iPhone 3G S may hit China in Q4 2009 as China Unicom and Apple sign 2-year deal
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