T-Mobile doesn’t officially support Apple’s iPhone in the U.S., but that hasn’t stopped over a million subscribers from hacking their combination iPod and smartphone to work on the company’s cell network.
A T-Mobile spokesperson told 9 to 5 Mac that most of the iPhones on the company’s network pre-date the iPhone 4. iPhone 4 owners have been cutting down T-Mobile SIM cards to fit the phone’s Micro SIM tray, too.
T-Mobile: We have a million iPhone users
The company is working on adding Micro SIM cards as an option for customers, although a release date hasn’t been announced. Currently, T-Mobile offers only standard-size SIM cards which are substantially larger than the Micro SIM cards used in the iPhone.
T-Mobile may see a boost in its U.S. iPhone 4 customers now that Apple is selling unlocked phones in the country. Prior to the officially unlocked GSM-based iPhone 4 model, users were forced to hack their phone to use it with carriers other than AT&T.
Jumping to T-Mobile from AT&T isn’t, however, without drawbacks. The two networks use different radio frequencies for 3G data, and the iPhone doesn’t include T-Mobile’s frequencies. While customers can make and receive phone calls with an iPhone on T-Mobile’s network, they’re limited to slower EDGE wireless data speeds.