Could T-Mobile's iPhone 5 Help Cricket Sell Units?

The updated iPhone 5 model Apple is creating for T-Mobile might help some smaller wireless carrier's sell more iPhone units.

As we explained Tuesday, in order to make the iPhone 5 compatible with T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 network, Apple needed to turn on some additional radios for the A1428 iPhone 5. Existing A1428 devices won't be able to receive an upgrade, but all news phones sold after April 12, 2013, will work on AT&T and T-Mobile's HSPA+ (or "4G") networks.

While this is great news for T-Mobile — it means that users can finally use an iPhone on its network at speeds faster than 2G — it's also good news for some other, smaller wireless carriers.