Speaking at the Citi Entertainment, Media & Telecommunications conference today, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse unveiled that the company will be offering their new LTE service first in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and six other smaller markets by mid-2012. According to comments made during the webcast event, Hesse stated that a total of ten markets will see service sometime before "midsummer."
While the launch will likely be accompanied by a USB modem or two, Sprint isn't expected to launch LTE-capable handsets until later in the year (a leaked ad on CNET this week suggests the first device could be the Galaxy Nexus).
Sprint laid out their plan to deploy LTE back in October, noting they hoped to cover 123 million "pops" (potential users) with LTE by the end of 2012, and 250 million by the end of 2013. The company is conducting a $4-$5 billion network upgrade that involves retrofitting every Sprint cell site, eliminating the refrigerator-sized cabinets for each technology (800 MHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.5 GHz) in favor of small, more energy efficient multi-mode base stations allowing them to offer Mobile WiMax and LTE for the foreseeable future.
Sprint will obviously need spectrum for this new network, and with LightSquared currently bogged down in GPS interference political hell, Sprint says they'll need to re-purpose spectrum in the 800 MHz band for LTE after the company shutters their Nextel iDEN service sometime in 2013. Still, Hesse insists the company has enough spectrum to see them through 2014 -- or 2016 if you conclude the spectrum sharing deals with Clearwire.
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Sprint Unveils LTE Launch Cities - Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio
Posted: January 5th, 2012, 2:39pm MST