Sprint Nextel finally entered the LTE race with the launch this morning of commercial services across portions of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio. Future launches will have to wait for later this year.
The market plans were initially announced earlier this year, and have been enhanced through additional announcements over the past six months. Sprint Nextel’s LTE plans were first announced last October.
Ahead of the launch, Sprint Nextel has been seeding the market with LTE-enabled devices, including the launch over the weekend of a white version of the HTC Evo LTE device. The carrier has also said it plans to continue supporting its flat-rate, unlimited data offering for smartphone users, something that many of its rivals have abandoned for tiered data pricing.
Sprint Nextel has also noted that its LTE rollout is part of its larger Network Vision program that will see the carrier upgrade its CDMA-based 3G coverage through the use of more advanced network and tower equipment. Most of the markets in the initial LTE launch included network equipment and deployment services provided by Ericsson, which has been a long-time provider to Sprint Nextel and currently manages its network. There was some concern over the relationship last month when it was revealed that Sprint Nextel planned to hire back approximately 240 employees from Ericsson that had originally been moved to Ericsson as part of the network management plan.
The LTE move places Sprint Nextel somewhat on level ground with larger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility, which have been plowing full speed in rolling out their respective LTE networks. The somewhat part comes in when you notice that Verizon Wireless is currently covering more than two-thirds of the people in the country with LTE services and plans to have coverage parity with its 3G network by the end of next year, while AT&T Mobility’s LTE offering is available in 47 markets with a similar plan for full network coverage by the end of 2013.
Another issue potentially hampering Sprint Nextel’s LTE growth is that its current network is reliant on just 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 1.9 GHz, G-Block, which is about half the spectrum Verizon Wireless is currently using in the 700 MHz block for its LTE service. Sprint Nextel has said it expects the spectrum limitation to not produce a meaningful differentiation to the end user, though the propagations characteristics between the two bands should produce better rural coverage and in-building advantages for Verizon Wireless.
Sprint Nextel is looking to tap into its 800 MHz spectrum holdings to further the coverage and scope of its LTE service as well as its partnership with Clearwire to take advantage of capacity enhancements using the 2.5 GHz spectrum band. Verizon Wireless for its part is looking to scoop up additional 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum resources to bolster the capacity of its LTE service.
The LTE rollout also bolsters Sprint Nextel’s marketing efforts against smaller rivals. MetroPCS, which offers no-contract services, has rolled out LTE technology across its more than a dozen home markets, though similar to Sprint Nextel is hampered at this point by a lack of spectrum assets to bolster the offering.
T-Mobile USA has said it plans to being rolling out LTE services as part of a major network overhaul beginning next year.
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