http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=464629
Sprint drops strongest LTE hints yet
By Nick Wood , Total Telecom, in San Jose
Tuesday 10 May 2011
U.S. mobile operator says announcements to be made soon; aims to reuse 800-MHz iDEN spectrum.
Sprint has given the strongest indications to date about adopting LTE to power its high-speed mobile network.
"There is a high likelihood that LTE is in our future in one flavour or another," said Geoff Martin, who heads up the U.S. operator's M2M collaboration centre in Silicon Valley, on Monday.
"Announcements will be made soon," he declared, without giving a specific date.
Sprint has until now used WiMAX technology as the basis for its next-generation mobile network, but with LTE adoption more prevalent among the world's mobile operators the ecosystem for WiMAX is likely to be limited by comparison.
"We don't want to be an island," said Martin.
A switch to LTE would bring Sprint in line with its rivals, and Martin said it plans to reuse the frequencies currently utilised by its iDEN network.
"Sprint has been sitting on 14 MHz of contiguous 800-MHz spectrum, which is really valuable, really powerful, and using it for a 1.5 [generation] push-to-talk network," he said.
Sponsored By
Recent Forum Posts
1/10th the coverage for half the price. Sounds...
1/10th the coverage for half the price. Sounds about right. T-Mobile isn't interested in covering the entire country, only the 5% where 80% of the population lives, so therefore they can charge...
ggore Today, 06:06 AM