China Unicom to re-enable Wi-Fi on iPhones

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With an aim to re-enable the Wi-Fi functionality on its range of iPhone handsets, China Mobile and Apple have joined hands. Initially, Chinese market was devoid of this facility. Some form of compensation is also considered to be offered by the company to existing handset owners in the form of improved 3G tariffs.

Selling of iPhone handset with support for Wi-Fi connectivity by the telco was banned. The decision was taken due to government regulations that favored the home-developed WAPI security standard. However, the rules have been relaxed since then and the use of Wi-Fi is permissible as long as they include support for the WAPI standard as an extra function.

According to Chief Executive Chang Xiaobing, the iPhone in China is priced similarly to iPhones in other markets after calling plan costs are taken into account but people would like to see lower prices and China Unicom will lower iPhone prices if conditions permit. However, any comment as to whether or not the company has any plans at present to lower the price has been denied.