What Apple’s new LTE love means for Sprint, T-Mobile

In Apple’s grand unveiling of the new iPad, it named its old pals Verizon Wireless and AT&T as the initial carriers for the mobile version of the device, but Sprint and T-Mobile were absent from the list.

This wasn’t a huge shock. One of the iPad’s key features is its LTE radio, and neither Sprint nor T-Mobile has an LTE network to speak of, yet. While you might assume that when their LTE networks do go live this year, they’ll next be welcomed into the iPad – and, more importantly, future iPhone with LTE — fold. But that won’t necessarily be the case. LTE is a whole new ballgame, and the old 3G rules that determined which carriers were blessed with Apple’s devices don’t apply in 4G. In fact, in this new LTE order the two operators may reverse roles, with T-Mobile landing its first iPhone and Sprint being left out in the cold.