Sprint targets to deliver the 5G mobile network in six US cities - Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington, DC and Houston - in the first half of 2019.
Just last week, AT&T, the second largest wireless carrier in the US announced its plans to introduce mobile 5G service in a dozen markets by late 2018.
Sprint is also working with Qualcomm Technologies and device manufacturers to launch 5G mobile devices in the first half of 2019. The recently announced Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem supports 5G NR for Sprint’s 2.5 GHz (n41) spectrum band.
Starting in April, Sprint will start rolling out advanced network technology called Massive MIMO in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles to allow customers to begin experiencing 5G-like capabilities, including significant increases in data speed and capacity.
Sprint will aggressively expand to additional markets including Atlanta, Houston and Washington, D.C. later this year. In 2018 and 2019 Sprint expects to deploy thousands of Massive MIMO radios, significantly increasing network capacity for millions of customers across the country.
Massive MIMO is a key part of Sprint’s Next-Gen Network strategy. Sprint is significantly increasing its investment to dramatically improve coverage, reliability, and speed across its nationwide network and launch the first 5G mobile network in the U.S in the first half of 2019. The Next-Gen Network build includes upgrading cell sites to triband service using 800 MHz, 1.9 GHz, and 2.5 GHz, adding thousands of new cell sites to expand coverage, and densifying the network with more small cells to increase capacity and speed.
According to Sprint, its first 5G-ready Massive MIMO cell sites are capable of delivering up to 10 times the capacity of current LTE systems, significantly increasing data speeds for more customers in high-traffic locations.
Sprint will deploy 64T64R (64 transmit, 64 receive) Massive MIMO radios using 128 antennas working with technology leaders Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung Electronics.
Dr John Saw, CTO, Sprint
Massive MIMO is a game-changer for TDD-LTE networks that’s being used by leading operators around the world to deploy Gigabit LTE and 5G.
Nishant Batra, Head of Product Area Network Infrastructure, Ericsson
Our 5G-ready Massive MIMO technology helps ensure a smooth network evolution for Sprint with its easy-to-adopt and install features. Sprint can get the most out of its vast 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings, boost the capacity of its LTE network, and deliver top-quality and high-speed data services to its customers.
