iPhones may be sold by Telecom

Fairfax

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Telecom has hinted that its new $300 million mobile phone network may be the first in New Zealand to support Apple's iPhone.

Head of mobile Martin Butler says whether Telecom would sell the iPhone was a "commercially sensitive issue".

But he said it was a "good inference", given Telecom's partially-completed mobile network uses the same 850MHz GSM/Edge technology that the iPhone supports.

Mr Butler says Telecom has finalised the "footprint" of the new network, which chief executive Paul Reynolds has forecast will launch in November.

The network will reach "97 per cent of the places where New Zealanders live and work" using second-generation GSM technology. This will give it a similar footprint to Telecom's existing CDMA network.

Mr Butler says that, at first, the new network will only provide 3G capability - suitable for mobile broadband - in the three main centres of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

HSPA W-CDMA cellsites in the three main centres will be "blazingly fast", letting customers download information from the Internet at speeds of up to 14.4 megabits a second, he says.

Elsewhere, mobile customers will need to rely on its CDMA Rev A network - which Mr Butler describes as "still the gold standard for mobile broadband" - to access the Internet at high speeds.

Telecom will build out the W-CDMA network to smaller centres over time, but Mr Butler would not comment on the timing, which he says would depend on the economics.

"Clearly we do have plans, but coverage along with services and devices are probably the most commercially sensitive pieces of information a telco has.

"What Vodafone did with their W-CDMA network was to start off with a `metro-centric' footprint and roll-out from there."

Mr Butler promises "a programme of pleasant surprises" for customers when the network launches, describing Telecom as "the challenger in the mobile market".

Telecom believed in providing mobile customers with an "open portal" so they could roam the Web at will, rather than providing them with access to a limited range of services through a "walled garden", he says.

- © Fairfax NZ News