T-Mobile's CTO says the next iPhone chipset will support the carrier's bands

Since Qualcomm's MDM9615 baseband chip is the most likely candidate for this year's iPhone version, on paper the device will support T-Mobile's bands.

Starting the other way around, T-Mobile's CTO Neville Ray mentioned in an interview at the first day of the CES expo that the next iPhone iteration will support the carrier's AWS waves, thus indirectly confirming  that MDM9615 is indeed in store for the sixth generation of Apple's venerable handset.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this year's edition of Apple's iPhone will probably support LTE connectivity, along with the current standards it supports, and therefore it will likely feature a Qualcomm baseband module, just like the iPhone 4S does.

The Qualcomm candidate closest to that "LTE + the kitchen sink" description is MDM9615, which is about to land in the next wave of LTE devices. It is manufactured by the 28nm process, meaning a tiny but capable package, supports most bands you can think of, including T-Mobile's, and is energy efficient.

Whether all of the above means that T-Mobile is likely to get the iPhone this year is entirely dependent on Apple, as the carrier's CEO already said during these CES days.

source: CNET & Anandtech