Apple’s press conference on 23rd of October not only unveiled highly-anticipated iPad mini, but also brought a new-new iPad, 13-inch Retina Mac Book Pro, and a slightly tuned Mac Mini.
While for Apple fans this is a great news in itself, for people genuinely interested in mobile technology, this might be interesting as well. A closer look at the new iPad 4th gen and iPad mini specs unveils an LTE module, which is compatible with European LTE bands. The new A6X CPU is just a performance tuning really, as A5X had a hard time powering the huge Retina display.
Two models, namely A1460 (iPad with Retina display, 4th gen) and iPad mini A1455 support LTE bands 700 MHz, 850MHz, 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz and 2100 MHz. All LTE networks in Poland currently use the 1800 MHz band, so the 4th gen iPad as well as iPad mini should work without problems. The only issue, one might encounter, is the nano-SIM standard. Such SIM cards are not widespread yet and migh not be readily available.
It is worth mentioning, that both new iPads can use high speed WiFi using either 2.4 or 5 GHz bands (a/b/g/n), as well as 40MHz channel bonding mode in 802.11n, which can nearly double the throughput.
This is not all. Both models mentioned in the previous paragraph also support CDMA networks (EV-DO) such as American Verizon, or polish Orange Freedom Pro. Unfortunately the latter uses a very specific 450 MHz band, which is not widely used worldwide, and new iPads unfortunately don’t support it. It might however become supported in future, which means iPad with cellular module might in future become The internet tablet, able to use nearly any band and almost any wireless technology. It would give Apple an unprecedented technological edge.
Have you heard any success stories about the A1460 model being used successfully in Poland with LTE? Also, which providers in Poland have LTE service that works with the iPad. My aunt is coming from Poland, and want to set her up with one that she can use instead of her laptop.
Hi Martin,
I’ve only heard that one of the polish providers “Plus” has working LTE in iPad Mini (A1455). I’m not 100% sure about A1460, but as long as the version of carrier bundle is 13.6 or above, it should work as well.
PS. When buying a new SIM card from PLUS you need to buy one with LTE service enabled. This is a link to their prepaid offer (you might need to use google translate) http://www.nakarte.plus.pl/prepaid_new/lte_na_karte.html
Thanks for the link. I can’t seem to figure out how to get the anything besides 200MB of data from this card (and can’t use the 1000 sms’s they provide). Either my Polish is bad, or the plan is rather limited. Do you see an option there for a 2GB or 3GB a month LTE plan?
Dear Martin,
It’s quite simple. After you bought the starter pack for 5PLN, you need to top-up credit on your account (you can do it online). The offer I linked you has a basic charge of 0,05 PLN per 100kb of data. Additionally, you can use the credit on your account to buy additional Data Packages. 200MB is just 1 PLN and 1GB is 13 PLN. Both will be available for 30 days (if recent top-up was 30PLN or more), or 7 days (if recent top-up was less than 30PLN).
Unfortunately, these Data Packages must be enabled by USSD code (which iPads simply don’t support), so you would have to insert the SIM into a regular phone.
I have asked their Tech Support if these Data Packages can be enabled online, without USSD codes. Will reply to this comment once I have their response.
Support confirms that additional 200MB and 1GB Data Packages can be bought online (online.plus.pl)