Report conveniently mitigates fears that iPhone 5 would have compatibility issues with 4G LTE like the iPad

The Wall Street Journal has just published an interesting piece that claims Apple’s iPhone 5 will be compatible with “the fastest wireless networks around the world”.

The next iPhone has been strongly rumored to be LTE capable, and that’s what we’ve heard as well. But there have been questions raised about worldwide compatibility, largely due to the fact that the newest iPad didn’t work on 4G networks outside the US.

The report makes this statement about the iPhone’s compatibility:

Apple Inc.s next iPhone will work on the fastest wireless networks around the world—including in the U.S., Europe and Asia—though it is unlikely to be available on every carrier, people familiar with the matter said.

The technical compatibility with so-called LTE networks removes a big competitive danger for Apple and gives carriers a chance to sell their fastest data services to Apple’s huge base of iPhone customers.

…

It isn’t likely to work with all carriers’ LTE networks in all countries, the people said, though it wasn’t clear which would be left out.

The iPad’s incompatibility with LTE networks outside of the US raised quite a stink. Especially because Apple marketed them as “4G” in markets like Australia, where it was not actually capable of 4G. Apple was eventually sued over it, had to change their marketing materials and pay a fine.

The Qualcomm MDM9615 chip that, in concert with a bigger battery and more power efficient processor, will likely enable LTE on the next iPhone is compatible with far more LTE bands than the one used in the iPad.

This report, just in advance of the iPhone event next week, is well-timed to mitigate fears that the same US-only LTE issues might also crop up in the iPhone 5. At the same time, it also sets expectations by outlining that the phones may work on many major carriers, but that there are a ton of LTE bands, so some could be left out of the faster connectivity.

Whatever source the Wall Street Journal tapped for this information seems to have pretty good timing.

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