Sprint LTE Launches in 15 - Not 5 - Markets

Sprint, the No. 3 network carrier in the US, was one of the first to roll out 4G services across the country. Of course, this was a 4G Wimax network, which eventually proved to be a bad move, LTE proving to be much faster and more efficient. This left Sprint backtracking and then jumping on the LTE bandwagon, in an attempt to play catch-up with network carrier powerhouses, Verizon and AT&T.




With its ambitious Network Vision plan, Sprint is hoping to boast full LTE coverage by late 2013 or early 2014. It looks like the first step in the plan is now complete. Sprint recently announced that is ready to launch high-speed 4G LTE services across five cities in the US, including Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, and San Antonio on July 15. To be honest, it’s not really “across the US” when three out of the five cities are in Texas, but it’s a start. Some initial results of testing done in Atlanta show promising signs, so things are looking good on that front, at least.




Sprint does feature a few great LTE-capable devices such as the LG Viper 4G LTE, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the HTC EVO 4G LTE, or the Samsung Galaxy S3. If you own one of these devices or are planning to get one soon, you can finally enjoy the blazing speeds 4G LTE offers. Only if you live in one of the above mentioned cities, of course. Moreover, with the availability of unlimited data plans, it may be a good idea to continue with, or get a new, 2-year contract with Sprint after all.To that end, things aren't looking great for Sprint's new 4G network – at launch, it is promising just 6-8 Megabits per second download speed (burstable to 25Mbps) and 2-3 Megabits per second upload. While these speeds are certainly faster than the Now Network's 3G alternative, they aren't exactly what consumers may have expected from a new LTE network.