Apple's excuse: iPhone users in Russia will remain without 5G
Access to the fifth-generation network in the iPhone is blocked at the smartphone firmware level, and the chances that Apple, which has left the Russian Federation, will turn it on are close to zero, cellular network experts told Izvestia. Before activating 5G, Apple usually requires confirmation from operators that the technology is working correctly on their networks. But it is almost impossible to transfer them to a company that is absent in the Russian Federation and has severed all contacts with Russian partners, they explain. However, iPhone owners should not be upset — full-fledged 5G networks, which make it possible to connect to the Internet at high speeds, will not be available everywhere and soon in the Russian Federation, experts say.
Why 5G won't be available on Apple smartphones
The launch of fifth-generation cellular communications in Russia is possible in the coming months. But owners of Apple smartphones probably won't be able to use it. Cellular communication specialists and experts told Izvestia about this. The iPhone technically supports the frequencies at which 5G networks are planned to be deployed in the Russian Federation, but the company is blocking access to it, a cellular network frequency planner explained to Izvestia.
The corporation strictly controls the use of certain functions in the iPhone, including cellular communications. Operators must individually provide him with evidence that 5G or another standard will work correctly on his smartphones and not cast a shadow on the iPhone with incorrect operation, the source told Izvestia.
Theoretically, Apple could open access to 5G in our country within the framework of the principle of technological neutrality — it is planned that operators will be allowed to deploy fifth-generation networks on frequencies that are already used for 2G, 3G and LTE and have been in operation for a long time without significant problems. However, after Apple left the Russian market, the company's interaction with domestic operators practically stopped, the source said. To activate 5G, operators must send a corresponding request to the manufacturer, but in the current conditions it is virtually impossible to do this.
From a legal point of view, the situation also looks complicated — the company has officially curtailed operations in the Russian Federation, stopped selling its products, disabled Apple Pay and limited the operation of other services, said Anna Barabash, CEO of Enterprise Legal Solutions.
The probability that 5G will work on the iPhone of Russians is close to zero, agrees Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group. These are one of the few devices that support the frequency range that is supposed to be used in the Russian Federation, but in practice it will not work in fifth-generation networks, since the company does not maintain any contacts with our operators. As a result, it remains impossible to certify and configure smartphones to work on domestic networks. The expert also noted that Apple has not been opening Voice-over-Wi-Fi calls to Russians for several years, the expert added.
As Izvestia wrote with reference to the materials of the State Commission on Radio Frequencies (GCRF), as early as the end of June, the state plans to allocate the 4.63–4.99 GHz band to Vimpelcom, MTS, MegaFon and T2, which will allow the deployment of fifth-generation networks in large cities. Operators want to be allowed to use frequencies previously allocated for 2G, 3G and LTE networks. According to the draft decision of the State Emergency Committee, the launch of 5G/IMT-2020 electronic communications services in all cities with a population of more than 1 million people should take place no later than December 31, 2027. In the technocrality mode, operators can launch fifth-generation networks within a few days after the decision of the State Monitoring Committee and the formal receipt of assignments from Roskomnadzor, one of the specialists in frequency network planning estimated.
There have already been precedents when the company restricted the access of Russian iPhone users to new network technologies. So, in 2013, iPhone owners gained access to LTE networks only a few months after the launch of fourth-generation networks by domestic operators. According to sources close to the communications negotiations, Apple was not satisfied with the Circuit-Switched Fallback (CSFB) function, which enables the device to switch from an LTE network to 3G during a voice call. Without the correct operation of this technology, receiving and making calls from that period would have been impossible. In 2021, when operators conducted public testing of fifth-generation networks in pilot zones, the company, which was still operating in the Russian Federation, was almost the only manufacturer that did not unlock 5G for this test.
Izvestia sent inquiries to Apple, MTS, Megafon and T2. Vimpelcom declined to comment.
How critical is the lack of fifth-generation connectivity for subscribers
Due to the fact that all iPhones enter our country without Apple's knowledge (more than half of these gadgets arrive via gray channels rather than parallel imports), their settings may not be suitable for working in Russian networks, said Leonid Konik, a partner at ComNews Research. This is a problem faced by most iPhone buyers who do not see a modem mode in the new device (for distributing the Internet using Wi-Fi technology), he gave an example.
— This problem is solved by manually setting the operator settings of the access point (Access Point Name, APN). It is very likely that Russians will need to perform similar manipulations to activate the 5G function in the iPhone, he believes.
At the same time, Apple does not completely ignore our operators, he said. MTS and Beeline are listed on the company's website in the section "Support for mobile operators and their services on an iPhone device in Europe".
— Operators plan to use the upper part of the band — 4.8–4.99 GHz, where the iPhone is currently not working, and given Apple's departure specifically for the Russian market, the frequency will most likely not be added to the firmware. This is not blocking, but the lack of certification of the sub—range by the manufacturer," said Oleg Yablokov, NTI expert on wireless communications.
But even if the 5G icon lights up, there will be almost no speed gain in most cases, the expert argues. According to the plan of the State Emergency Committee, by the end of 2026, fifth-generation networks should be operational in only four regional centers, and for iPhone owners, the appearance of an icon in the status bar will not make loading pages or videos noticeably faster — this is more a technical than a real step, he believes.
In his opinion, the absence of 5G will have a limited impact on sales of Apple smartphones in Russia. There will be no real coverage of this network in the country in the next year or two, and few people will notice the lack of access to a function that does not yet exist, he believes.
— The iPhone audience in Russia has gone through much more serious trials in recent years. The key drivers of iPhone purchases — the ecosystem, iOS support, and secondary market liquidity — are not related to 5G," the expert said.
Demand is more strongly influenced by other factors: the general decline in the market, the rise in price of smartphones, parallel imports and increasing sanctions restrictions on services, Oleg Yablokov noted.
Nevertheless, market participants still hope that Russian operators and Apple will eventually agree on the inclusion of 5G. In the "Connection.ON" believe that although Apple does not officially operate in the Russian Federation, the company is still loyal to our users. In particular, after restrictions on payments through telecom operators, Apple relaxed a number of its own restrictions in order to support iPhone owners in the Russian Federation. It is premature to say that there will be no reaction from Apple to requests from operators to remove the 5G lock, its representative believes.
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