China Mobile Wants Neutered iPhone

by Eric March on September 25, 2008 at 1:13 pm

Apparently, the Great Firewall of China doesn’t just filter out websites, now the PRC wants it to filter out certain features of the iPhone, too.

According to The South China Morning Post, a report from Daiwa Institute of Research claims that the version of the iPhone due to hit the mainland on the China Mobile network have will its 3G disabled and WiFi radio excised. China Mobile does not have a 3G network completely set up yet (they are currently testing a proprietary TD-SCDMA network in 8 cities, but there has been no word yet on results), but disabling 3G outright seems a bit weird, considering that they could have just left it be and allowed it to be 3G-ready once the telco gets its network up and running wholesale. Currently China Mobile only offers data over GPRS. (That’s right, no EDGE, either.)

The castration of the WiFi radio is much more of a mystery. It’s possible that, like their mobile data protocol, they want to develop their own proprietary method of wireless communication, or perhaps they do not trust the global wireless standard and fear that it could somehow be used to bypass the government firewall and gain access to forbidden websites. Whatever the reasoning, the iPhone that is rumoured to eventually crop up in China will be reduced to a brick. A pretty brick, but a brick nonetheless.

Despite this however, it’s likely that the iPhone will still be a huge success. China has the highest per-capita rate of mobile usage in the world, and China Mobile itself has the highest subscriber rate of any telco in the world. Smartphones there account for a large percentage of mobile usage, since they emphasize entertainment rather than business usage. It is estimated as well that as much as 20% of the handsets sold in China cost in excess of RMB $4,000 (approx. US $533), so expensive smartphones are an easy sell there.

It is unknown if Apple will be complying with China Mobiles requests however. Apple has been in on again/off again talks with the telco since the original iPhone came out, and it wasn’t until the iPhone 3G’s release in July that talks resumed after a 7 month hiatus. There is no official word from either China Mobile or Apple, so this is just another analyst’s prediction until we hear otherwise.

(Cellular-News, via Gizmodo)

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