The current iPhone is great. It can be unlocked in under a minute, and it works perfectly on any GSM operator with EDGE (or even plain old GPRS). But if/when Apple introduces a 3G iPhone there is one group of people who’ll most likely be left in the 3G dark: T-mobile users.

When T-mobile finally got around to launching their 3G network in May, they had to do so on an obscure frequency band (1700MHz). It’s such a rarely used band, that only 2 operators in the world currently have licences to use it (T-mobile USA and eMobile in Japan). The chance of Apple implementing this rarely used band in the iPhone is next to nothing.

Assuming the next generation iPhone can be unlocked (and it’s probably just a matter of time), it’ll still be a plain old EDGE device on T-mobile. Which means you’ll need to switch to AT&T to get speedy data. Which sucks.