Sprint Launching LTE Devices, Doing Away With WiMax for Good This Year

While WiMax was once the supposed wave of the future when it came to smartphones, Sprint has recently announced that they will not be releasing any more phones of that ilk … ever. The HTC Evo was the first of its kind because it was both the first WiMax and 4G phone that was put out by Sprint. 

Just a few years after that release, Sprint is doing away with the WiMax devices and phones all together. That means that there will be no hotspots or anything else that is equipped with the WiMax antenna. Instead the company will be making the move to having a larger selection of LTE equipped devices. Sprint says that the company will have produced 15 different LTE devices by the end of 2012.

Sprint has not exactly kept its love affair with LTE a secret, though like most love affairs it always hasn't been a smooth ride. The company claims that while there have been problems cropping up here and there, LTE launching is on track and on time. Of course, as of now, there are no markets that actually boast the LTE signal but Sprint says that quite a few cities will have those capabilities by the middle of this year. 

Several sources say that the timing for the LTE markets to go live is no coincidence, as Sprint is also planning on rolling out a new EVO, the EVO One, sometime around June. While this news is good for anyone who is looking to try out both the new phone and super fast speeds, Sprint vice president of networks Bob Azzi says it is even better news for his company. According to Azzi, the LTE networks will allow for a 50 percent reduction in the cost of delivery data and text messaging, as well as a 50 percent reduction in the cost of voice services. 

The most interesting part of this is that most other companies claim that switching to LTE would actually cost more money. More intriguing is that Sprint is taking some heavy losses on their phone sales thanks to Apple's iPhone coming on board late last year. Should LTE actually be more expensive, Sprint would most likely not be delving into it.