iPhone 5s/5c will support 4G LTE on UK’s O2 and Three, carriers confirm

5s 5c banner

Apple’s new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c can work on more than thirteen different LTE bands, “more than any other single model of smartphone,” per Apple. Whereas last year’s iPhone 5 launched in a hundred countries across 240 different carriers, 2013 iPhones will be released on an additional 30 carriers, bringing the number of world carriers which carry Apple’s device to 270. Now, there’s been some commotion whether or not the handset’s updated LTE capabilities support 4G LTE flavors of United Kingdom’s O2 and Three carriers…

For O2, the official confirmation came through its Twitter channel.

“And One More Thing… Yes, iPhone 5S and 5C will support 4G on O2. More info coming soon,” O2’s UK support channel on Twitter has it. Surprisingly enough, O2 was not listed on Apple’s refreshed web page of LTE iPhone carriers at the time of this writing.

“We’re not sure what happened, but we can confirm that 4G is available on both the iPhone 5S and 5C! :)”, another tweet by O2 representatives reads.

As you can see on the screenshot below, the web page only lists Apple’s existing UK carriers, EE and Vodafone – likely a mistake on Apple’s part. O2 just launched its 4G LTE last month and Three’s is coming online before the end of 2013 so that could be another reason for the omission.

LTE support (iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, EE and Vodafone in UK)

Both new iPhones support LTE  on bands 3, 7 and 20 (and many others) frequencies that are used by the UK’s four major wireless carriers EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three (the 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz bands).

Three’s website advertises the iPhone 5s/5c as coming soon. All four telcos have confirmed to Gizmodo that they’ll be carrying the new iPhones and that the devices will support their respective 4G LTE flavors.

Green iPhone 5c

The iPhone 5c will be available to pre-order in the United Kingdom from this Friday, September 13. Apple does not offer pre-orders for the top-end iPhone 5s and both devices will go on sale a week later, on September 20 (that’s a Friday).

Furthermore, Apple confirmed via a press release today that the iPhone 5s and 5c will also launch on Japan’s NTT DoCoMo on September 20. The handsets have gained approval from China’s regulators, potentially paving the way to a rumored launch on China Mobile, the world’s largest telco with 700+ million subscribers.