AppleInsider reports that people in many countries outside of North America may not be able to benefit from the new iPad’s LTE capabilities. On the information page of the UK Apple site, for example, it says that the new iPad supports the 700MHz and 2100MHz LTE bands that are in the US AT&T version, but AppleInsider says that these bands don’t match the 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz LTE bands in use in Europe. Elsewhere, in Japan, for example, AppleInsider notes that the Wi-Fi+4G model doe not even have LTE support, stopping at DC-HSDPA, let alone having any compatible network to run on. As Phil Schiller noted when talking about LTE during the new iPad’s launch on Wednesday, Apple is well aware that 4G LTE bands are very different in other countries outside of North America, but thinks that they will probably all become unified in the future, just as happened with 3G. Until that happens though, there will have to be different versions of the iPad to suit the LTE bands in different countries. AppleInsider concludes by saying that Apple is working with various telecoms companies to try and sort the whole issue out.
Source: New iPad 4G LTE incompatible with networks outside North America
