T-Mobile iPhone 5 Also Mentioned After Earlier Sprint iPhone Claims

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The iPhone, an AT&T-only affair in the U.S. until recently, is getting ready to hit all major U.S. carriers if recent reports are to be believed.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal told us the iPhone 5, along with the iPhone 4, are coming to Sprint in October, and a today, a new report is suggesting that T-Mobile may also be planning to launch the device soon.

The news comes from MacTrast, and while it’s not the WSJ, it has been in contact, apparently, with an anonymous T-Mobile tipster:

The informant, who requested to remain anonymous, went on to claim that the iPhone 5 would also operate at 3G speeds on T-Mobile US network. Current unlocked iPhone 4 units can only operate at at 2G “edge” speeds on T-Mobile’s network, and lack certain network-dependent features, such as Visual Voicemail.

Further elaborating on the matter, the informant suggested that T-Mobile USA expects the iPhone 5 to launch sometime in early to mid October, which corresponds nicely with current speculation. He also expects the iPhone 5 to make a significant financial difference to T-Mobile. Our source was quoted as saying the following:

We expect the addition of the iPhone, and the iPhone 5′s ability to run on our 3G network to make a significant financial difference for T-Mobile.

We have previously heard that T-Mobile has plenty of customers using unlocked iPhones (at 2G speeds only unfortunately) so it would certainly make a lot of sense to see Apple interested in bringing the smartphone to America’s fourth largest carrier as soon as this year, no matter of the outcome of AT&T’s intentions of buying off T-Mobile.

The iPhone 5 has already been confirmed to sport dual-mode CDMA/GSM support and considering that Apple is also rumored to work with China Mobile to launch a TSDCDMA-ready iPhone, we wouldn’t be surprise to see the next-gen iOS handset sport UMTS 3G capabilities as well, which are needed for it to operate on T-Mobile’s network.