WIth respect to bands –
An Iphone has a radio, it also has functionality built in. It is not unlikely that if you have radio that car read a certain frequency (AWS, PCS etc) that it interfaces to a chip that can decode the signal (LTE, WCDMA-UMTS). So, yes it is likely you can activate PCS-LTE, or AWS-LTE, or AWS-WCDMA. This simply means, that the Iphone 5 can work on T-mobile’s AWS frequencies as a 3G phone… or later onto their AWS LTE frequencies. Afterall, LTE and UMTS are related technologies that share an evolution and are backwards compatible.

@24 Ya think? He didn’t say that, though, did he? He said “we are behind MUCH of Europe.”

And the Nordics have 25 million residents, a 3.3% share of the EU’s 740 million. That’s not really representative of Europe, is it? Certainly it isn’t “much of Europe”. And I was being generous when I carved out “the Nordics” because, really, only one carrier launched LTE before Verizon: TeliaSonera, and they only covered the few major cities in their network. That was impressive, no doubt, but let’s also note that TeliaSonera only offered it on modems, and their first LTE phone was in 2012…yeah, long AFTER the USA. And that was the first LTE phone marketed in all of Europe. Here’s an article that may set you right:

http://www.intomobile.com/2012/03/05/sweden-becomes-first-country-europe-get-4g-lte-smartphones/

Meanwhile Verizon LTE covers 371 cities and 75% of the U.S. population. But AT&T also has LTE, Sprint has had 4G OFDM WiMAX for years and now has LTE, MetroPCS has had LTE for over a year, etc. etc. The USA auctioned off our LTE exTV spectrum in 2007, years ahead of other regions, most of which still have not migrated their TV to digital. So, your comment ranks down there with Julius’.

The USA has been a cellular laggard in eras past, but it is a leader today. We are ahead in digital dividend spectrum management, ahead in innovative secondary incentive markets for spectrum re-allocation, ahead in all 4G network technologies, ahead in white spaces, we produce 3 of the top mobile OSes, the top search engines, the top speech recognition engines, we produce a large portion of the sector’s start-up and innovation, and its mobile content. To say “we are behind Europe”, you’d have to have been under a rock for 12 years, and have emerged mostly stoned.

BTW, I have no problem with the USA coming second, third or fourth. Geez, I’m used to much worse when I look at global rankings of education, health, happiness, etc. I also encourage Europe to break ahead again, and take the lead in the future. I don’t care where innovations happen, just so long as it happens.

Lookat that. You wrote 7 words, and I offered you a clinic in return. You’re welcome.