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Colombia to start testing 700MHz LTE, joins a Latin American trend in 4G
Those in the US can brag about having the range, indoor friendliness and other advantages of 700MHz LTE, but few other countries have that edge so far: Latin Americans who have any LTE at all usually have to contend with less tolerant 2.6GHz bands. Colombia isn't happy with that state of affairs, and its National Spectrum Agency is spearheading a rapidly growing 4G movement in the region by testing 700MHz LTE between the fall and winter. Its strategy echoes proposals from Brazil and Mexico that will use the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity band plan, providing more efficient airwaves as well as wider device and network coverage. It will take beyond early 2013 before Colombia and its neighbors are actively using 700MHz bands -- the digital TV transition is one of the bigger obstacles -- but there's desires for a fast-track spectrum handout that could bring blazing speeds to Bogota before too long. [Image credit: Kinori, Wikipedia]
China Telecom awaiting CDMA iPhone 4
Rumors that Apple and China Telecom are close to inking a deal to bring the iPhone 4 to a second wireless carrier in China may be premature. The latest report from Digitimes suggests the deal may be held up by the lack of a SIM card slot in the CDMA iPhone 4. Earlier information from Chinese news site suggest this technical limitation was overcome by China Telecom engineers, but details on this achievement were not provided. Vincent Chih, CEO of Asia Pacific Telecom, claims Apple will need a substantial volume of orders to modify the CDMA iPhone 4 with a SIM card slot. If China Telecom can successfully negotiate a deal with Apple, then APT will be able to offer the iPhone 4 through its close relationship with the Chinese wireless carrier. APT is a Taiwanese cellular carrier that boasts of over 2 million subscribers and operates Taiwan's only CDMA network. China Telecom is China's third largest cellular operator with over 82 million subscribers.
