The much storied arrival of the iPhone on the worlds largest carrier, China Mobile, looks set to reach its conclusion as soon as this week according to a new report. According to the Wall Street Journal, pre-orders of the iPhone will be going live in Shanghai this coming Thursday:
China Mobile Shanghai’s website, running the “4G is here!” slogan, invited potential customers to preorder the iPhone 5S and other smartphones from Samsung Electronics Co. and Sony Corp that support the company’s new 4G mobile network.
It's already known that China Mobile is to launch what now clearly is its 4G LTE network on December 18, and the speculation was that the iPhone launch may coincide with this. The stars certainly seem to be aligning on that one. The website wouldn't accept pre-orders right now, but the WSJ confirmed with a China Mobile representative the additional details:
Customers can begin to preorder for our new 4G services from Dec. 12 through the company’s website and some dedicated branches in Shanghai. But we will only start providing commercial 4G services after Dec. 18,
So, the coming together of two giants in the mobile world is all set to go down in the next couple of weeks. It's been a long, drawn out affair, but there's no doubt plenty of folks on both sides of the agreement that will sleep easy now it's done.
Source: Wall Street Journal