iPhone 5 to be a 4G Smartphone Depending on Who You Ask

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4G is that elusive next-gen communication technology standard that you really shouldn’t care about right now when buying a phone since mobile operators are still working on successfully deploying their 4G networks. Not to mention that smartphone makers aren’t really ready to offer that many 4G-ready devices yet.

Sprint and Verizon have the lead in the USA, with their WiMAX and LTE upgrades, but T-Mobile and AT&T will also embrace 4G soon, real 4G that is. Both GSM carriers are currently referring to their HSPA+ networks as 4G, and while there are arguments for and against that practice, I’ll still call “HSPA+” fake, marketing-friendly 4G, for the time being. As for other regions of the world, well, there’s no real or fake 4G campaigning going on for the moment at least not comparable to what the U.S. carriers are doing right now in terms of 4G advertising.

Yesterday HP launched the Veer and we were surprised to see it is a 4G phone, the Veer 4G. But we didn’t realize what AT&T did immediately (luckily 9to5mac did), which is to tell us that 4G now equals download HSDPA Category 10 and upload HSUPA Category 6 speeds, both supported by the Veer. In other words AT&T says that 14.4Mbps download and 5.76Mbps upload speeds represent 4G. No problem there! Who are we to argue with this mind-boggling, brainwashing marketing tactic? But that means that any other smartphone that will offer such capabilities will be, according to AT&T a 4G phone.

Which brings us to the iPhone 5 launching in September. The general consensus is that Apple will not pack LTE capabilities into the iPhone 5 since the U.S., and international market, are not ready for worldwide LTE support, so why bring LTE to the 2011 iPhone? So therefore the iPhone 5 will not be an iPhone LTE or iPhone 4G smartphone, if all current reports and rumors are to be believed.

But we certainly assume that Apple will upgrade the download and upload theoretical speeds of the iPhone. The iPhone 4 comes with HSDPA 7.2Mbps and HSUPA 5.76Mbps support, while the iPhone 3GS will also get you HSDPA 7.2Mbps max download speeds. The CDMA iPhone 4 comes with 1xEV-DO rev.A support, which offers upload peaks of 3.1Mbps, although we’re going to focus on the GSM iPhone in the following imagination exercise.

Should Apple upgrade the iPhone 5’s HSDPA capabilities to 14.4Mbps speeds (and that will most likely happen considering the iPad 2 3G has 14.Mbps support) then the phone will be on par with the newly launched AT&T 4G smartphone, the HP Veer. But will AT&T have the audacity of calling it a 4G device? After all the carriers don’t mess with Apple when it comes to Apple products, but let’s assume for a second AT&T would have such balls. How would an “iPhone 5 4G” moniker sound like? What will Verizon say, considering the current clash between carriers regarding 4G support, since Big Red will also carry the CDMA iPhone 5 which will not be considered a Verizon 4G device since it won’t come with 4G LTE support. And remember those T-Mobile commercials that were making fun of the iPhone running on AT&T’s “slow” network? What would T-Mobile say in the eventuality AT&T would advertise the next iPhone as a 4G device (of course we’re assuming here T-Mobile is still willing to fight AT&T until their future partnership gets approved.) Needless to say, Europe and other regions of the world will sell the exact same GSM iPhone 5 AT&T will get, but they’ll never call it a 4G phone.

Therefore, folks, the iPhone 5 could be a 4G device according to some people, even if Apple doesn’t have 4G plans for its handset yet. Either that, or some of AT&T’s current 4G handset will drop a 4G from their names soon.