Cheaper Iphone fuels 3G rumours

MOBILE PHONE PEDDLER O2 is cutting the price of the lowest-spec iPhone by £100, probably to clear stocks for the much-rumoured launch of the updated 3G capable handset.

From today you can a grab the basic 8Gb version of the touchy-feely-fone for £169. You'll still have to stump up for a pretty hefty £35-a-month contract and you might be left with a bit of a lemon when Mr Jobs dons the black polo-neck for his keynote at Applealalooza (AKA the Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference) in San Francisco this June.

The 3G Rumours were substantiated somewhat by a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report picked up by Digitimes. The report states that United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) will be the foundry to produce Infineon Technoloiges' 3G baseband chip, which will be used in the new Apple iPhone.

The PMB878 baseband chip will be fabricated on UMC's 65nm process node. TSMC was the foundry for the baseband chip used in the first-generation iPhone.

Apple's partner in Germany, T-Mobile, has already slashed the price of the elderly handset to just £80, so it might be worth hanging out for a bit longer.

Or, if you're not an Apple fan just go and buy one of the multitudinous Iphone wannabes flooding the market from just about everyone in the business. µ

L'Inqs
O2
Digitimes