Clearwire preps 31 areas for LTE rollout in 2013
updated 06:50 pm EDT, Thu April 26, 2012
Clearwire
Clearwire late Thursday gave an indication as to the scope of its initial LTE network launch for mid-2013. A total of 31 market areas would be covered during the launch period. The deployment would include several major cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle.
The implementation will use TDD-LTE, the format expected to come both to mainland China and to Canadian carriers. CEO Erik Prusch reiterated that the network would be ready for LTE-Advanced, which theoretically peaks at 1Gbps.
More cities would be detailed later, Clearwire said.
Clearwire's network will be important to supplementing Sprint's coverage and could also turn Clearwire into a phone carrier rather than a data-only service through potential support for Voice over LTE (VoLTE). The network hasn't confirmed any such plans.
