A Chinese website Giz-Chaina.com is reporting that China Mobile, the largest carrier in China has reached an agreement with Apple to bring its 4th generation TD-LTE mobile network standard to next generation iPhone for Chinese market. The website posted:

China Mobile claims that it has reached an agreement with Apple to bring its 4th generation TD-LTE mobile data connection to the next generation iPhone. The claim isn’t exactly new news as it was originally reported back in May, and doesn’t specify which model of iPhone it will be in, but could hint at the next generation iPhone actually being an iPhone 4S type device, with updated 4G capabilities, rather than a totally new iPhone 5 design.

Now here is what we know, China Mobile won’t launch TD-LTE network till second half of 2012 and they won’t do significant deployment till 2013. So, it’s highly unlikely that next generation iPhone 5 which will ship in few weeks time will support the standard. Our sources have told us repetitively that for upcoming iPhone Apple is not interested in LTE, which carriers like Verizon and AT&T have started deploying, let alone a China specific standard like TD-LTE.

We have heard from various sources that Apple is already working on next two generations of iPhone models that will be launched after iPhone 5. It is likely that one of these two generations will support TD-LTE, but its not coming anytime soon. In fact, LTE will come to the iPhone first with next revision, when LTE chipsets made with 28nm process technology start shipping in 2012.