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Sprint Finally Joins 4G LTE Wireless Race
alphadogg writes "Sprint, which has been building up its LTE smartphone lineup this year, Monday finally turned on a 4G LTE network in 15 cities to support those devices. Sprint, which is entering the LTE network race well behind AT&T and Verizon, has initially launched 4G LTE in cities across Georgia, Texas, Missouri and Kansas. Sprint says it will add markets throughout the rest of 2012 and expects to have largely completed its 4G LTE build-out by the end of 2013 (along with enhanced 3G coverage) to address the wireless voice and data needs of 250 million people across the United States. Sprint has some major catching up to do on the 4G LTE network rollout front, though the fact that LTE adoption by customers has been slow at least gives the carrier a bit of breathing room. LTE network demand is expected to surge later this year, assuming Apple rolls out an iPhone 5 with LTE support."
At this point, all four major carriers now support LTE. So the next question is: will we start to see handsets that cover the entire LTE frequency smorgasbord that is used within North America?
Current LTE:
Band 04 : 1710-1755 UL / 2110-2155 DL - AT&T, T-Mobile, MetroPCS
Band 12 : 0699-0716 UL / 0729-0746 DL - Verizon, US Cellular
Band 13 : 0777-0787 UL / 0746-0756 DL - Verizon
Band 17 : 0704-0716 UL / 0734-0746 DL - AT&T
Band 25 : 1850-1915 UL / 1930-1995 DL - Sprint
Band 26 : 0814-0849 UL / 0859-0894 DL - Sprint
Future LTE:
Band 02 : 1850-1910 UL / 1930-1990 DL - currently being used for HSPA+ by AT&T and T-Mobile
Band 41: 2496-2690 TDD - currently being used for WiMax by Clearwire for Sprint
Because Sprint has had Wimax since the beginning (longer than any other company has had 4G^H^H 3.5G). The only reason they're changing over is that they're pretty much the only ones that have adopted Wimax instead of LTE. Wimax is still gonna be supported by Sprint into 2014 - there's really no rush to change over.
And honestly, there's really no difference between Wimax and LTE either outside of the fact that more people started adopting LTE after Sprint started building up their Wimax network. It's not like the speeds are worlds apart in the way that '4G' is an improvement over 3G. LTE is a little bit faster than Wimax, but the difference will be totally inconsequential.
So for that, shame on whoever wrote the title.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
Your statement isn't really accurate.... I have Sprint, and my phone works great.
I live near on the lake in Cleveland. Around here, Verizon is notorious for having terrible service. I used to be a Verizon customer, and I would get 0-1 bars in the house, and would drop calls all of the time. I told Verizon about the problem, and they said I needed to update to a newer phone. Verizon will never admit a problem with their network, even if it is clear there is one.
Switched to Sprint a couple of years ago and I have consistently had 3-4 bars, plus 4G coverage, never a dropped call. Plus I can use my phone all I want without any concerns about going over in my data charges.
Perhaps Sprint used to have bad coverage, but this *really* isn't the case anymore. Sprint has stepped up their coverage areas to where their phones work pretty much everywhere. In the areas where Sprint doesn't have native coverage, you still have unlimited roaming on other networks.
Here is a sample comparison in coverage maps in my area:
http://i.imgur.com/XyLqi.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CkXQM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/N90Yw.jpg
The top one is Sprint, and the bottom one is Verizon. At least in my region, Sprint works everywhere. Verizon is spotty - all of the white parts on the Verizon map are dead zones.
Verizon markets themselves as the carrier with the best coverage, although in practice I haven't really found that to be true. They still have a major problem with dead zones.
Software defined radios are used at towers, because power is cheap and plentiful (vs a portable device).
Eventually, a chip manufacturer will start building a radio that does the whole swath of LTE. It's just going to be a bit. Remember, LTE still hasn't been around anywhere near as long as CDMA or GSM.
The biggest problem with LTE for handsets is power. Frequency translations in software are the last thing you want to do if you're worried about battery life.