[telecom] Why the iPhone 5 on Verizon and Sprint Won't Juggle Calls and Data

Why the iPhone 5 on Verizon and Sprint Won't Juggle Calls and Data

By BRIAN X. CHEN SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

A lot has changed in Apple's new iPhone. But with the Verizon Wireless and Sprint versions of the iPhone 5, there's something that will remain the same from the old model: The phone still won't be able to place a call and handle data activity over the cellular network at the same time.

Older Verizon and Sprint smartphones on 3G networks were not able to handle simultaneous calls and data because of a limitation in CDMA, the 3G technology that those networks use. But now some Verizon 4G LTE smartphones will let you stay on a phone call while looking up something in an app or checking e-mail. So why not the iPhone 5?

Brenda Raney, a Verizon Wireless spokeswoman, said it was Apple's decision to design the iPhone 5 so that customers could make voice calls and do Internet activity simultaneously only over Wi-Fi, not over Verizon's cell network. "The iPhone 5 is designed to allow customers to make voice calls on the Verizon Wireless network and surf the Web on Wi-Fi," she said in an e-mail. "It was an Apple decision."

The explanation for this, it turns out, is complicated. The technology in 4G LTE networks does not currently handle voice transmissions; it only does data. So when you place a phone call on a

4G LTE smartphone, it's actually rolling back to the carrier's older second- or third-generation network, according to AnandTech, a Web publication that does deep analysis on hardware.

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