04-21-2011, 02:10 AM
As I understand it, Europe and the US are using different frequencies for 3G mobile data. I am not sure about the current iPhone (4g), but I don't think the US iPhone 3g could do 3G mobile data in Europe, and the European model could not do 3G mobile data in the US. (In addition, AT&T and T-Mobile are using different 3G frequencies in the US, so you can't use an AT&T iPhone on T-Mo right now at 3G speeds. Will be a moot point soon as they are merging.)
I checked the iPhone 4, and apparently the US version can do some European 3G:
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/06/07/iphone-4s...rld-phone/
I was not able to find a similar article on the UK iPhone with a quick Google search.
So while the UK phone might work in the US, it might not be able to access data on the mobile phone network at 3G speeds. And by then the phones would probably be available on 4G.
Also, if the UK iPhone is locked to one carrier (as is the case with AT&T iPhones) you'd have to jailbreak it to unlock it.
My working assumption is that as the technology develops, phone makers will come out with "world" smart phones which can do data on all the frequencies around the world. This happened with voice: most GSM phones in the US today can handle both the two US voice frequency bands and the two voice bands used in Europe and elsewhere. But data hasn't caught up.
Good luck.
- Winston
I checked the iPhone 4, and apparently the US version can do some European 3G:
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/06/07/iphone-4s...rld-phone/
I was not able to find a similar article on the UK iPhone with a quick Google search.
So while the UK phone might work in the US, it might not be able to access data on the mobile phone network at 3G speeds. And by then the phones would probably be available on 4G.
Also, if the UK iPhone is locked to one carrier (as is the case with AT&T iPhones) you'd have to jailbreak it to unlock it.
My working assumption is that as the technology develops, phone makers will come out with "world" smart phones which can do data on all the frequencies around the world. This happened with voice: most GSM phones in the US today can handle both the two US voice frequency bands and the two voice bands used in Europe and elsewhere. But data hasn't caught up.
Good luck.
- Winston