Sprint Corp has demonstrated peak transmission speeds of 295Mbps in tri-band carrier aggregation (3C) tests over its LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) network – branded ‘LTE Plus’ – using the HTC 10 device, which it says is one of the first devices on the market to support the functionality. Sprint’s current LTE coverage reaches approximately 300 million people, equivalent to more than 90% of the US population. The operator’s two-channel CA delivers peak speeds of over 100Mbps in 237 LTE Plus markets across the country using 40MHz of spectrum on select 2500MHz cell sites. Three channel CA will see Sprint utilise 60MHz of bonded spectrum to create wider channels and produce more capacity and faster speeds.
Sprint’s CTO John Saw said: ‘With holdings of more than 160MHz of 2500MHz spectrum in the top 100 US markets, we have more capacity than any other carrier in the US. Our customers and those switching to Sprint can be confident in our ability to meet their demand for data now and well into the future.’
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, in November 2015 Sprint rebranded the service, from ‘Sprint Spark’ to LTE Plus. The tri-band network aggregates 800MHz frequency division duplex LTE (FDD-LTE) spectrum (previously used by Sprint’s defunct iDEN network), 1900MHz ex-CDMA spectrum and 2500MHz time division duplex LTE (TD-LTE) frequencies, as previously utilised by WiMAX firm Clearwire.