Sprint Plans to Deploy Advanced-LTE and VoLTE in 2013

[dgstorm]

This is some interesting technology news whether you are on Sprint or not. Sprint's vice president of network development and engineering, Iyad Tarazi, recently shared during the 4G World conference, that Sprint plans to begin deployment of their LTE-Advanced network as early as the first half of 2013.

The current iteration of LTE Advanced can support theoretical speeds up to 100 Mbps or more. This is roughly 10 to 20 times Verizon’s 4G LTE real-world speeds of 5-15Mbps. Sprint indicated that their initial deployment of LTE-Advanced will only be capable of 12-15 Mbps before further advancements are made, but as time progresses they will be able to ratchet up to the higher speeds. Their plan is to wind down their older iDEN network, and deploy the LTE Advanced on the freed up 800 Mhz spectrum.

Furthermore, Tarazi indicated that Sprint will continue to support their existing 3G CDMA/EV-DO network, so they use 3G for voice and 4G for data. However, Sprint also intends to have over 250 million people covered with LTE by the end of 2013, which would give the company a bigger LTE footprint than its existing CDMA network. They are planning on launching a new Voice over LTE (VoLTE) at the beginning of 2013, which will allow them to switch to a one radio design, driving costs down for themselves and OEMs that build devices for Sprint.

Because of contractual obligations with Clearwire, Sprint will also still support WiMAX for a few years. Sprint expects to begin launching Advanced LTE devices, probably tablets at first, sometime toward the end of 2012.

Source: SprintDroids via GottaBeMobile