Sprint names six cities ready for 5G ahead of its US launch

From April, Sprint (NYSE: S) customers in selected US markets will experience the future of wireless technology as the company prepares to switch on the country's first 5G mobile network in the first half of 2019.

Customers in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles will begin to experience 5G like capabilities, including significant increases in data speed and capacity, as Sprint rolls out an advanced network technology called Massive MIMO. Sprint will expand aggressively into additional markets, including Atlanta, Houston and Washington, D.C., later this year. Across 2018 and 2019, Sprint expects to deploy thousands of Massive MIMO radios, significantly increasing network capacity for millions of customers nationwide.

Massive MIMO is a critical bridge to Sprint's 5G network. 5G technology promises to connect people, places and billions of things with ultra fast, ultra reliable, low latency wireless service. This innovative technology will enable new levels of innovation and progress, including cloud robotics, telemedicine, connected cars and drones, augmented and virtual reality, and much more.

"The race to 5G is heating up, and let me be very clear: today's announcement is a huge step towards Sprint being first with a 5G mobile network," said Marcelo Claure, chief executive of Sprint. "Our deep spectrum position gives us an incredible advantage that no other operator has in the United States. We are making major investments using cutting edge technology and working with leading chipset and handset partners to deliver an incredible next generation network for our customers."

The race to 5G is heating up, and let me be very clear: today's announcement is a huge step towards Sprint being first with a 5G mobile network

From the story

Sprint's first 5G ready Massive MIMO cell sites are capable of delivering up to ten times the capacity of current LTE systems, significantly increasing data speeds for more customers in high traffic locations. With Massive MIMO forming the basis of Sprint's Gigabit LTE and 5G services, Sprint can keep meeting its customers' demand for unlimited data and high bandwidth applications. Customers will have a great experience using 6K and 8K televisions and applications such as HD virtual reality.

"Massive MIMO is a game changer for the TDD-LTE networks being used by leading operators around the world to deploy Gigabit LTE and 5G," said Dr John Saw, chief technology officer at Sprint. "For more than a year we have been testing this new technology, and in a few weeks we will bring the power of Massive MIMO to Sprint customers, starting with some of the largest markets in the country."

All Sprint customers using a 2.5 GHz device (band 41) will benefit from the greater capacity and speed provided by Massive MIMO. Sprint is also working with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, and with device manufacturers to launch 5G mobile devices in the first half of 2019. Qualcomm's recently announced Snapdragon X50 5G modem supports 5G NR for Sprint's 2.5 GHz spectrum band (n41).

Sprint will deploy 64T64R Massive MIMO radios, with 64 transmitters and 64 receivers, using 128 antennas, working with the technology leaders Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung Electronics. The Massive MIMO radios from all three suppliers are software upgradable to 5G with no additional tower climbs. The Massive MIMO radios support split mode service, allowing Sprint to offer both 4G LTE and 5G on the same radio.

With 204 MHz of spectrum and more than 160 MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum in the top 100 markets, Sprint is uniquely positioned with sufficient capacity to offer a nationwide 5G mobile network using licensed spectrum. Because of Sprint's large spectrum holdings, it is also one of the only operators in the world with enough capacity to run LTE and 5G simultaneously across 100 to 200 MHz on the same Massive MIMO radios.

Nishant Batra, head of network infrastructure product area at Ericsson, said: "Our 5G ready Massive MIMO technology helps ensure a smooth network evolution for Sprint with features that are easy to adopt and install. Sprint can make the most of its vast 2.5 GHz spectrum capacity, increase the capacity of its LTE network and provide high quality, high speed data services to its customers."

Marc Rouanne, president of mobile networks at Nokia, said: "With Nokia's 5G ready Massive MIMO radios, Sprint will build great capacity for its customers, especially in densely populated places such as city centres and high rise buildings. This powerful technology will be easy for Sprint to deploy on its 2.5 GHz spectrum, which will drive data traffic, and we look forward to helping Sprint develop new levels of innovation in cloud robotics, augmented reality and much more."

"After trialling Massive MIMO solutions in a real world setting with Sprint last year, and seeing impressive capacity gains using the same amount of spectrum, we are excited to reach this new milestone with the deployment of Samsung 5G ready MIMO solutions on Sprint's network," said Mark Louison, executive vice president and general manager of the networks division at Samsung Electronics America. "As this technology advances to even greater levels of speed and capacity, we look forward to Sprint customers experiencing all the benefits of network innovation."