Apple to Expand LTE Support to 36 Additional Carriers in Several Countries

iphone 5 black whiteDuring today's Financial Results call, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that 36 additional carriers will be providing LTE connectivity for the iPhone and the iPad next week.

"Next week," said Tim Cook, "we're adding 36 more carriers for LTE support. These carriers will be in countries that we are not currently supporting LTE."

While Cook did not name all 36 carriers that would be getting LTE, he did mention that they are in regions like Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, the Philippines, and the Middle East. Currently, 24 carriers offer LTE for the iPhone and the iPad, in countries like the United States, Australia, South Korea, the U.K., Germany, Canada, and Japan.

Apple has been slow to roll out LTE connectivity, leading to complaints over the "4G" in the third generation iPad's name when it was released. Apple later changed it to the iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular in response.

When asked if the slow pace of LTE rollouts has had an impact on iPhone sales, Cook skirted the question, but he did mention the plans to roll out LTE in the aforementioned countries during the next week, and had this to say: "We feel really good about the situation we are in, particularly with these adds next week."

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Top Rated Comments

mrsir2009 Avatar
156 months ago
LTE requires new base stations. Not likely, with < 10.000.000 people in sweden.

Well New Zealand only has 4 million people, less than half that of Sweden, and our no.1 carrier is beginning work on a 4G LTE network: http://www.telecom.co.nz/mobile/mobile/ournetwork/buildinga4gfuture/ (http://www.telecom.co.nz/mobile/mobile/ournetwork/buildinga4gfuture/)
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
quaresma Avatar
156 months ago
LTE requires new base stations. Not likely, with < 10.000.000 people in sweden.
LOL what are you talking about? Denmark has a population of 5.500.000 and yet we get LTE support next week.

You can't base LTE support on population count
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
filip20 Avatar
156 months ago
LTE requires new base stations. Not likely, with < 10.000.000 people in sweden.

What are you talking about? Sweden already have 4G (LTE) and was the first country in the world with a commercial 4G network.

Sweden has ≈ 21 people per square kilometre, and denmark has 130 people per square kilometre.

The absolute majority lives in southern Sweden.

Denmark has how many fjords (difficult locations)?

Are you high or just retarded?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MathijsDelva Avatar
156 months ago
To all the people who are suprised Apple is enabling LTE support (through carrier settings): i take it you are mostly Americans? There are countless, literally, countless threads here on MacRumours and Apple Disccusions about this issue. The whole world is pissed at Apple for this: we buy an unlocked phone (which means: hardware you can use freely on any sort of system, network, ...) yet somehow, Apple is deliberately blocking software LTE support in at least 36 countries (with probably loads more). Our main LTE carrier in Belgium has been trying to get LTE supported (which is insane, since they use the correct band) through Apple for about 4 months now, without any reaction..
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
wschutz Avatar
156 months ago
LTE requires new base stations. Not likely, with < 10.000.000 people in sweden.

Maybe if you had done your research before opening that big mouth you would know that Sweden was the first country in the world (with Norway) to have LTE...

That Apple doesn't support the bands used in some countries it doesn't mean these countries don't have LTE (moreover... you wish you had the quality of internet Swedish have... and also the price), but hey... no hard feelings.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Northgrove Avatar
156 months ago
Still no Sweden :(
LTE requires new base stations. Not likely, with < 10.000.000 people in sweden.
Swedish Telenor and Tele2 have just started trial runs on the 1800 MHz band supported by the iPhone 5 in order to bring LTE support to Sweden. This actually hit the news yesterday. The coincidence with Cook's tease here about expansions to new countries lines up with Sweden's latest trials, and I think Swedish Tele2 and Telenor will be among the countries/carriers officially added, possibly with the final release of iOS 6.1 or iOS 7. (they have told media that a software update to iPhone and iPad will still be necessary despite the carriers technically supporting the bandwidth in the future)

An initiative like this is no doubt made in cooperation with, or at least with endorsement by, Apple. I think there's no way they would go through this otherwise, due to how popular Android devices already support LTE in Sweden via the 800 MHz band.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)