Sprint to introduce 5G in six major US cities by 2019
Sprint announced it is preparing to deliver mobile 5G in the first half of 2019. Customers of the carrier in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles are promised to get “5G-like capabilities”, later joined by Atlanta, Houston and Washington DC. In 2018 and 2019 the company will position thousands of Massive MIMO radios, increasing its network capacity across the country.
As part of the coverage expansion, Sprint promises to connect “people, places and billions of things with blazing fast speed, ultra-reliable, low-latency wireless service”. The press release asto states that “this breakthrough technology will enable new levels of innovation and progress including cloud robotics, telemedicine, connected cars and drones, augmented and virtual reality and more.”
Marcelo Claure, Sprint CEO, said the deep spectrum position gives the company an incredible advantage no other carrier has in the US. With implementing the new standard with the Massive MIMO cell towers, users should get up to 10 times the capacity of LTE and will have “a great experience” with their 6K and 8K TVs, along with applications such as HD Virtual Reality.
Dr. John Saw, Sprint CTO, explained the technology has already been tested for more than a year. All Sprint devices with 2.5GHz devices (Band 41) will benefit from the increased capacity and speed. In addition, Sprint is one of the carriers that is working along with Qualcomm in introducing the Snapdragon X50 modem with 5G capabilities.
Massive MIMO antennas are deployed by Sprint along with Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung. When launched, they will be capable of offering both 4G LTE and 5G on the same signal.
