Sprint announced today at an analyst conference in New York City that it will roll out a Long Term Evolution 4G network "aggressively" on its 1900MHz PCS spectrum and 1600MHz spectrum, which is owned by LightSquared (pending FCC approval). Sprint said its LTE network will launch in the first markets in mid 2012, with the first devices also appearing in mid 2012, too. Sprint believes that its LTE 4G network will offer faster speeds than are currently available via WiMax, will offer broader nationwide coverage, and will transition between 3G/4G networks seamlessly. Sprint says that by the end of 2012 it will have about 176 million 4G POPs covered with a mix of WiMax and LTE. By the end of 2013, it will cover 250 million POPs with LTE, completely overlapping its current WiMax footprint. Sprint noted that it will be given a 20MHz channel of LightSquared's LTE spectrum, but can back out of its deal with LightSquared if the U.S. government does not approved LightSquared's L-Band spectrum use by the end of the year.



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