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superfula
join:2002-03-17
Ankeny, IA

superfula to swintec

Member

to swintec

Re: VZW iPhone 5 LTE Simultaneous Voice & Data?

said by swintec:

said by jw :

From what i understand the chip in the iPhone is capable of it once the network is capable of it with that equipment. Otherwise why would apple have not added the extra antenna now if they'd have to do it anyway. So i think the phone is capable once the network is. You can't compare iPhone and Android. They have different systems

Apple has already said they didnt add this functionality into Verizon and Sprint versions so they could save space.

Apple has said nothing about VoLTE. The chip in the iPhone 5 supports it but it's not known if the feature is enabled. All the same a simple software update should be enough if it isn't.

AnonFTW
@rr.com

AnonFTW

Anon

Brian Klugg at Anand said the iPhone 5 isn't currently capable of VoLTE and Apple specifically filed the iPhone 5 as *NOT* VoLTE capable in their FCC filing. See the FCC Test article image and explanation here: »www.anandtech.com/show/6 ··· support-

I believe VoLTE is simply a baseband software upgrade however, but whether Apple decides to enable that when the carriers support it is up to them. If Verizon and AT&T support VoLTE in 2013 as claimed, I believe that Apple will update the iPhone 5 for VoLTE as long as it is not a hardware limitation. Anand explained that when you buy an LTE SoC from Qualcomm, you pay for features, even if they go unused. So it's completely possible Apple didn't buy the VoLTE "feature" when they negotiated the license for the baseband chips. He stated the baseband was all the same and the features were enabled at the software level however (in the Qualcomm provided SDK I believe) so I don't see why they couldn't negotiate to have it enabled at a later date.

As for why most Android phones can do simultaneous CDMA and LTE, as others have stated they either have two radios (and subsequently suck battery life) or in the case of newer CDMA/LTE SoC that are combined onto a single die (ala Samsung Galaxy S3) they have dedicated CDMA/LTE antennas. Usually one more than the iPhone 5.

So the bottom line is that if simultaneous voice and data is critical for you, get a phone that supports it or don't go with CDMA service.