In The Emirates, Apple's carrier partner confirms 4G LTE iPhone 5

Who-ho, a Dubai carrier that sells the iPhone may have just kissed good-bye its chances of doing business with Apple. According to GulfNews.com, the United Arab Emirate’s wireless operator etisalat (yes, without capital “e”) has gone official today on a possible iPhone 5 launch. Here’s what their head of corporate communication said:

Yes, we are in talks with most smartphone manufacturers including Apple on the rollout of the 4G handset, iPhone 5 later this year. As the first telecom organisation to roll out the 4G network, LTE, in the Middle East, we have already started talking to them for the handsets and chipsets in them.”

Yeah, and analysts have promised us flying cars, too. Take this one with a healthy dose of skepticism. On the other hand, here we have a corporate communication chief of Apple’s valued carrier partner publicly hinting at a release time-frame of an upcoming Apple handset. Either he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about – in which case today will be his last day at job – or he’s just inadvertently confirmed September launch rumors .

The publication’s business editor Saifur Rahman explained that etisalat is finishing up a nationwide deployment of its 4G LTE network, due to launch commercially in the third quarter, when the next iPhone is said to hit the market. Note he also implied in no uncertain terms that iPhone will support fourth-generation networks using Long-Term Evolution (LTE) radio technology. They also covered the Emirate of Abu Dhabi with the advanced fiber-optic network. Etisalat’s 4G LTE network will be capable of download speeds up to 150 megabytes per second, Rahman noted.