Sprint May Be Forced to Switch to LTE Soon
Sprint’s been having a lot of trouble lighting up new WiMax towers as of late – it’s been a REALLY, REALLY long time since we last saw another city get 4G. Part of it is due to Clearwire’s financial situation that’s all but frozen their efforts to expand their WiMax offering.
If you thought Sprint might have wanted to consider LTE before because of the situation, then you’ll be happy to learn that they’ll probably have no choice. PC World caught up with Sprint’s Bob Azzi, who is their senior vice president of networks.
If Sprint wanted to move on without Clearwire, then they’d have to use LTE technology because the spectrum they own will soon only be compatible with LTE after a rebanding occurs. They’ll go from 120MHz in the 1900MHz band to 14MHz in the 800MHz band.
And the conversion wouldn’t be hard at all, says PC World, as all it’ll take is installing new baseband cards at their network facilities and running a software upgrade. It’s clear Sprint’s hand is being gripped so tightly that they’re looking to make a major move – any major move – sometime this year. And fortunately for Sprint users, an LTE conversion might be the only route to go.