Sprint confirmed that it will offer a 5G smartphone from LG Electronics in the first half of 2019.
Sprint recently announced plans to launch its 5G mobile network in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.
“Sprint is moving fast on the road to 5G and we are thrilled to announce the first 5G smartphone with the innovative team at LG,” said Dr. John Saw, Sprint chief technology officer. “LG has done tremendous work developing technical designs that enable us to be among the first movers in mobile 5G. Today’s announcement brings us one step closer to putting a beautifully-designed advanced 5G smartphone in our customer’s hands. And we’re excited to revolutionize the mobile industry as we dramatically improve the way Sprint customers work, play and stay connected.”
“LG has been working side-by-side with Sprint for nearly 20 years, and we are looking forward to expanding this partnership with 5G,” said William Cho, LG Electronics North America President and CEO. Building on LG’s legacy of innovation, our teams are enthusiastic about partnering with Sprint’s 5G experts to bring next-generation mobile to market in the U.S., while continuing to evolve LG’s best-in-class design elements for Sprint customers.”
Sprint now has over 15,000 small cells up and running
Sprint’s CTO, John Saw, published an update on the company’s next-gen network buildout. Here are some highlights:
- Upgraded thousands of macro sites for all three of its spectrum bands (800 MHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.5 GHz).
- Expanded 2.5 GHz to nearly two-thirds of its macro sites, up from approximately half of sites covered just a few quarters ago.
- Current has more than 15,000 small cells on-air with its combination of strand mounts and mini macros to expand 2.5 GHz coverage.
- Deployed approximately 7,000 strand mount 2.5 GHz small cells on cable infrastructure in Q1. Since the quarter ended, efforts have continued to accelerate, and today Sprint has more than 10,000 strand mount small cells deployed.
- Distributed more than 65,000 2.5 GHz Sprint Magic Boxes to improve indoor data speeds on average by 200%. To date, Sprint has distributed more than 260,000 Sprint Magic Boxes to businesses and homes in more than 200 cities. Announced a new version of the Sprint Magic Box designed for the hospitality industry.
- Speedtest Intelligence data from Ookla shows Sprint’s 4G LTE network is the most improved network in the U.S. with national average download speeds up 30.9 percent year-over-year, more than any other national carrier.
- In its first quarter of FY18, Sprint continued field testing and optimizing Massive MIMO radios in locations such as Dallas, Los Angeles and New York City. Some sites are now running commercial traffic and the initial performance results are very promising. Today we’re seeing a more than 4X increase in speed on these sites, as well as increased coverage and cell edge performance.
- In the first half of 2019, Sprint plans to launch mobile 5G in nine markets initially – Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.
