It's official. Sprint is moving to LTE

CK SatGuy

Formerly ckhalil18
Original poster
Feb 7, 2011
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The Motor City
From Mobile Burn:
During Sprint's Network Vision announcement this morning, the carrier detailed its plans to transition from its 4G WiMAX network over to a 4G LTE network. Sprint will be aggressively deploying LTE over a variety of spectrum holdings that it has access to.
The first thing that Sprint plans to do is to shut down its iDEN network, used for its push-to-talk services for the Nextel brand. The iDEN network runs on 800MHz spectrum, and Sprint intends to migrate users from iDEN to its new CDMA-based push-to-talk services by 2013.

Before the iDEN network is shut down, though, Sprint will deploy 4G LTE services on its 1900MHz spectrum. The carrier is aggressively deploying this, with a launch planned for mid-2012. The LTE rollout is expected to be largely complete by 2013. This isn't Sprint's only LTE plan, as it has a partnership with LightSquared to use the 1600MHz band for LTE as well, provided LightSquared's network is approved by the FCC. Sprint also has access to Clearwire's 2,500MHz spectrum, which it currently uses for WiMAX service. The carrier said that it could eventually utilize that for LTE capacity in the future.

Once the iDEN network has been decommissioned, the 800MHz spectrum will be freed up for 3G CDMA voice service and 4G LTE data service. Sprint is confident that it has enough spectrum holdings to maintain capacity through 2015. It claims to be prepared for the onslaught of new devices, including the iPhone, and has been preparing its network capacity for months.

Sprint's LTE plans include four different bands of spectrum: 1,900MHz, 1,600MHz, 800MHz, and possibly 2,500MHz. All of these are different from the 700MHz spectrum that AT&T and Verizon Wireless already use for LTE, which makes device interoperability between the networks nearly impossible. Sprint expects to cover 120 million residents with LTE in 2012, with 250 million covered by the end of 2013. It currently covers 123 million with WiMAX, and the future LTE network will overlap with that.
http://www.mobileburn.com/16952/news/sprint-details-4g-lte-network-roll-out-plans-launch-in-mid-2012
 
dumb question here. our current phones that use wimax will have no issues with LTE? great news by the way. sprints 4G via wimax is very inconsistent. sometimes its great and sometimes it really sucks...
 
dumb question here. our current phones that use wimax will have no issues with LTE? great news by the way. sprints 4G via wimax is very inconsistent. sometimes its great and sometimes it really sucks...

I would imagine they will NOT work with LTE. They will continue to work with the normal CDMA network however.
 
dumb question here. our current phones that use wimax will have no issues with LTE? great news by the way. sprints 4G via wimax is very inconsistent. sometimes its great and sometimes it really sucks...
I'm going to bet that you would have to upgrade if you want to use LTE since those new phones would use a different chipset. Wimax will probably stick around for another couple years before Sprint shuts it down.
 
I would imagine they will NOT work with LTE. They will continue to work with the normal CDMA network however.
yeah thats what i imagined. thanks buddy

I'm going to bet that you would have to upgrade if you want to use LTE since those new phones would use a different chipset. Wimax will probably stick around for another couple years before Sprint shuts it down.
well now i have an excuse to update to the latest and greatest :D. i will wait till they have this up in my area................
 
I REALLY like my Samsung Epic, when they go to the LTE, I'll have to buy a NEW phone ?

Hopefully they have the same phone with the new chipset in it.
 
isaacmorseMI said:
I'm sure they will give you an updated model when they shut down the WiMax network. Or at least a discount on a new phone.

I doubt it. They didn't compensate any of their nextel subscribers when they shut down WiDEN. Maybe they've learned their lesson by now, though?
 
I'm just waiting for 4G to come around my area, and I hope my EVO will work with LTE.

It won't. The EVO is compatible with 4G that is done using WiMax from Clearwire. LTE is a whole other animal that will require new equipment.
 
There's a rumour going around XDA that the photon has a broadcom chip with both lte and WiMAX. I cannot validate the veracity of this claim but it has been great fodder for discussion.

If they give people a fully subsidised phone early, ie when lte rolls out I think it would be great pr.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
 
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