Sprint Demonstrates One Gigabit Speed in Lab

Yesterday I wrote that, thanks to Sprint’s acquisition of Clearwire spectrum, it could deliver a tri-band LTE network. Spark is the name that has been given to Sprint’s new tri-band LTE network. Today, Oct. 31, 2013, Sprint has made another announcement.

Sprint said that today, in what can be considered an early preview of things to come, that it has, in its lab, demonstrated 1Gbps over the air speed. Under optimal conditions, Spark should be able to provide some rather impressive speeds. We are looking at 50-60Mbps throughput.

The reason that I say “should” is because the 2500MHz signal that is used does not really have great building penetration. Additionally, we have the possibility that bandwidth may not be that high as more people begin using Spark.

Although Sprint has demonstrated that it can achieve the high speeds promised, as of today there is no device designed to run on Spark. This will all change shortly. By the end of next week Samsung will introduce the Galaxy Mega and the Galaxy S4 Mini.

Both smartphones will be able to use the new network after a software upgrade scheduled very soon. Next week we will also be seeing a new smartphone from LG called the LG G2 and soon after that we will see the HTC One max. We will still have to wait until early 2014 to see these devices run on Spark.

The description from Sprint of the tri-band LTE network now known as Spark is as follows:

Sprint Spark combines 4G FDD-LTE at 800 Megahertz (MHz) and 1.9 Gigahertz (GHz) and TDD1-LTE at 2.5GHz spectrum, TDD-LTE technology (2.5GHz), and carrier aggregation in the 2.5GHz band. These spectrum assets, technology, and architecture are designed to deliver a seamless customer experience via tri-band wireless devices. Tri-band devices, named for their ability to accommodate multiple spectrum bands, support active hand-off mode between 800MHz, 1.9GHz, and 2.5GHz, providing data session continuity as the device moves between spectrum bands.

Sprint has a three-year plan that is designed to deliver Spark to 100 cities across the U.S. One method that it will use to expand coverage is to use small cells. Sprint also said that its real-world speeds will increase beyond 60Mbps "over time." It did not give a time frame as to how long it might take to get to 1Gbps.

According to Sprint, Spark is a key component of its Network Vision program. Currently, Sprint 4G LTE covers 230 markets across the nation with a goal to serve 200 million people by the end of this year. While both LTE technologies bring significant enhancements in network speed, the 2.5GHz spectrum is crucial to the exceptional capacity, speed and flexibility expected with Sprint Spark.

Probably the most crucial area that Spark will affect is to greatly improve the performance of video and other bandwidth intensive applications. It will also open the way for futuristic applications. Today, wireless networks and smartphones can do and offer a lot. Sprint Spark supports a new generation of online gaming, virtual reality, advanced cloud services and other applications requiring very high bandwidth.