For a long time T-Mobile has offered support for the iPhone on its network, but has never actually sold the device in any of its stores. This could all change though, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Nick Delfas, who says T-Mobile could “announce official iPhone distribution in early 2013.”
As of now, T-Mobile is the only major U.S. carrier that doesn’t sell the iPhone to customers, but this could easily change. T-Mobile has been working on improving its 4G LTE network, and it may announce that it will spend $4 billion on this, allowing the company to carry the iPhone 5 in more markets. Last month, T-Mobile launched unlimited 4G data plans.
This could all be happening to bring the iPhone 5 to T-Mobile stores, which is the first iPhone to have 4G LTE capabilities. A few weeks ago, T-Mobile also announced that it was merging with MetroPCS, which has also been working to improve its own 4G LTE network. A merge between these two means that T-Mobile will be able to increase its LTE network further across the country.
Delfas didn’t provide much more detail than that but theorized that this deal could help sell another million or two million iPhone 5s in the first quarter, which would only be good news for Apple.