Sprint on Friday unveiled plans to launch its own 4G LTE network beginning mid-2012, rivaling the high-speed mobile connections offered by Verizon and AT&T. It will complement its existing, but slower, 4G WiMAX network.
At the Sprint Network Vision Strategy Update in New York, Sprint's vice president of product development, Fared Adib, said the operator would launch 15 dual band CDMA/LTE mobile devices, including handsets, tablets, and mobile hotspots, after the rollout.
What about Clearwire and FCC-pending LightSquared? Sprint's not waiting for either company to launch LTE. Sprint will use existing resources to deploy LTE: leftover G-block spectrum from its acquisition of Nextel, and repurposing spectrum that will free up once it shuts down its 2G iDEN network in 2013. However it retains the option to host extra spectrum from LightSquared once and if it gets FCC approval.
Sprint towers will host the multiple technologies, as outlined last December in its Network Vision plan.
Full migration of Sprint LTE 4G will take it to 2013, though if LightSquared spectrum becomes available it will continue on to 2015. For more, see the slideshow below.
To see the speed differences between Verizon and AT&T's existing LTE networks, check out our 21-city Fastest Mobile Networks tests.