As we should all know by now, 5G is coming. That means that cellular download speeds of up to 5Gbps will be possible, and both carriers and hardware OEMs want to be the first ones there. A couple of weeks ago, Motorola and Verizon announced the Moto Z3, the first phone that will be upgradable to 5G.
Now, it"s time for Sprint to announce its 5G plans, and the carrier"s first device will come from LG. It should arrive in the first half of 2019, which is the same timeline as Verizon"s plans. One big difference is that while Verizon only has three markets announced, Sprint says that it will have 5G available in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.
"LG has been working side-by-side with Sprint for nearly 20 years, and we are looking forward to expanding this partnership with 5G," said William Cho, LG Electronics North America President and CEO. Building on LG’s legacy of innovation, our teams are enthusiastic about partnering with Sprint’s 5G experts to bring next-generation mobile to market in the U.S., while continuing to evolve LG’s best-in-class design elements for Sprint customers."
Oddly, the announcement talks about Sprint"s MIMO cell sites and doesn"t make any mention of millimeter waves, the high frequency waves that are a big part of 5G.
While Verizon and now Sprint have made their announcements with their initial 5G plans, you can expect to hear from AT&T and T-Mobile any day now.