U.S. carrier T-Mobile has decided to offer "additional support" to customers using the iPhone on its network, reports TmoNews. While T-Mobile doesn't sell the iPhone, it reports that more than 1 million unlocked iPhones are used on its network and the additional support will be useful to T-Mobile's less tech-savvy iPhone users.

tmoiphonesupport
T-Mobile will support users who have questions about "common procedures, information about feature and specifications and other basic device questions." Most T-Mobile iPhone users are limited to T-Mobile's slower EDGE network due to the iPhone's incompatibility with the 1700/2100 MHz bands used by the carrier for its faster data networks. Late last year, though, some of T-Mobile's towers were adjusted for its faster HSPA+ network, moving them to the iPhone-accessible 1900MHz band in some "pockets" of the country.

Earlier this month, T-Mobile claimed the next iPhone chipset could be capable of supporting the carrier's Advanced Wireless Spectrum, but noted that it didn't have any specific knowledge of Apple's future products.

Top Rated Comments

Diode Avatar
180 months ago
The capability is in the qualcomm radio. Apple just needs to invest in the transceiver, PCB changes and modifications to the external antenna to support the AWS bands. Given these are small hurdles, the hurdle is a political/economics one, not a technical one.
Even handsets that support LTE over AWS like the AT&T HTC Vivid have the HSPA+ radio disabled on the AWS portion, again effectively locking out T-Mobile. This shows it's purely politics and probably stipulated by AT&T to have the phone on their network.

I suspect you will see Apple do something similar to "save battery" or something.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrmjenkins Avatar
180 months ago
The capability is in the qualcomm radio. Apple just needs to invest in the transceiver, PCB changes and modifications to the external antenna to support the AWS bands. Given these are small hurdles, the hurdle is a political/economics one, not a technical one.

The specs aren't going to advertise it because apple has no intention of running on those frequencies.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1092599



AWS is UMTS 1700
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmwade77 Avatar
180 months ago
As much as people love to hate on AT&T, I've actually had better customer service with them than Verizon. When people say AT&T has bad service, I never actually hear any details about an encounter they had. It's just taken for fact.
Ok, I will give actual examples:

First off, please note that with AT&T, this is a business account, so there are a ton of lines on it and we spend a fair amount with them every month.

There was fraud committed on the account, which took several months to get the charges reversed, even though they acknowledged the fraud. Then when we went to order new phones, we were "not eligible for an upgrade" as they never fixed our upgrade eligibility status when they removed the line. I had to go to the vice president of AT&T to get this resolved.

They also had double billed us for certain lines and kept saying it was our fault.

Anytime that I need to call them, it takes 15-20 minutes to get a live person and this is through their key contact center, which is supposed to be a lot faster than the consumer side.


Now, let's compare this to T-Mobile, which I personally have as a family line with 5 lines:
We accidentally purchased something, it was our fault, but we called T-Mobile, they immediately reversed the charges.

When they started enabling data by default for smart phones and charging for it, we called them after we were charged about $100, they reversed the charges (and extra) and put a block on it within about 2 minutes.

My wife wanted to be able to tether her Android phone, she called them, they gave her instructions on how to do so without having to pay the extra $5 per month that they officially want you to pay.

We have never waited for more than 2 minutes on hold for a representative and that was when 1/2 the state was experiencing a service outage.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrmjenkins Avatar
180 months ago
As much as people love to hate on AT&T, I've actually had better customer service with them than Verizon. When people say AT&T has bad service, I never actually hear any details about an encounter they had. It's just taken for fact.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rcappo Avatar
179 months ago
Will I be allowed to tether my phone to my laptop? Will the data plan be reasonably priced?
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WatchTheThrone Avatar
180 months ago
Good for tmobile supporting even phones they don't sell. I had an unlocked 3GS with tmobile and never did I have a problem with it but when Sprint got the iPhone and tmobile didn't I decided to give sprint a try.
Been very happy with Sprint even though their 3G was slow at launch but now I'm getting on average 1.2mb/s and for me thats pretty good o and having truly unlimited is a major plus!! (did 4.5 gigs last month and no throttling) :)
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iOS 26

iOS 26.1 Coming Soon: New Features for Your iPhone and Release Date

Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more. Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1. Release Date Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
iOS 26 Maps Glass

Apple Reportedly Moving Ahead With Ads in Maps App

Sunday October 26, 2025 6:22 am PDT by
Apple Maps could feature integrated ads as soon as next year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman said that Apple's plan to bring more ads to iOS is moving "gaining traction," with the Maps app being next in line. The project will apparently give restaurants and other businesses the option to pay to have their details featured more prominently in...
maxresdefault

Apple TV 4K Could Still Launch Before 2025 Ends: All the Rumored Features

Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors. ...
iOS 26 Battery Glass Feature

iOS 26.1 Beta Liquid Glass Battery Drain Test: Tinted vs Clear Mode

Friday October 24, 2025 2:30 pm PDT by
In the fourth iOS 26.1 beta, Apple added a "Tinted" option that reduces the translucency of Liquid Glass for those who prefer a more opaque look. I saw some comments wondering whether the setting might preserve battery life, so I thought I'd do some testing. Test Settings I did four separate tests using the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and I kept the parameters as similar as possible. Here are the...
M6 MacBook Pro Feature 1

M6 MacBook Pro: Release Date, Pricing, and What to Expect

Monday October 27, 2025 9:15 am PDT by
Apple this month refreshed the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, and higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are expected to follow in early 2026. However, these machines will represent the final update to the current design, with Apple reportedly developing a completely new version of the MacBook Pro packed with next-generation hardware...
iOS 26

iOS 26.1 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features for Your iPhone

Wednesday October 22, 2025 6:15 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more. iOS 26.1 is currently in beta testing. The update will likely be released in the first half of November, and it is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer, but some...
iOS 26

Apple Seeds iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1 Release Candidates

Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:07 pm PDT by
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The RCs betas come a week after Apple released the fourth betas. The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software...
swift for android

Developers Can Now Make Android Apps With Apple's Swift

Sunday October 26, 2025 4:23 am PDT by
The first preview release of the Swift SDK for Android was published this week, allowing developers to build Android apps in Swift with official tooling and making it easier to share code across iOS and Android. The SDK enables Android apps to be built in Swift using officially supported tooling rather than community workarounds. In June, it was announced that Apple's Swift programming...
iOS 26

6 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 26.1

Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below. Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...