With the launch of the iPhone on Sprint last year, every major carrier in the country offered Apple’s flagship device. Except one. T-Mobile has been left to twist in the wind for years now. Though rumors of a T-Mobile iPhone have cropped up periodically, nothing has ever materialized. With the collapse of the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger, it was beginning to look like T-Mobile might never get the iPhone.

It looks now, though, like that might be about to change. Speaking at CES in Las Vegas, T-Mobile’s chief technology officer Neville Ray says that the next iPhone will carry a chipset that supports T-Mobile’s unique wireless network. The band of spectrum that T-Mobile uses for its phones, called AWS, is considerably different than that used by AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. That difference has presented an obstacle to bringing the iPhone to T-Mobile’s network. Ray claimed that the chipset in Apple’s next iPhone will support AWS, though he admitted that Apple may choose not to make the necessary deal to bring the iPhone to T-Mobile.

With the launch of the next iPhone still several months away, it will be some time before any possible deal between Apple and T-Mobile could be confirmed. A deal between the two companies would not be a surprise, however. Though T-Mobile is the smallest of the four major carriers, their customers still represent an untapped market for Apple. Look for more news on this front in the coming months, but a formal announcement is not likely to come before the iPhone’s unveiling later this year.

[Source: CNet]