Sprint's 4G service goes live in more California, Delaware, Florida, and Michigan cities

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If you live in Modesto, CA; Stockton, CA; Jacksonville, FL; Wilmington, DE; or Grand Rapids, MI get ready, because Sprint is about to start pumping sweet, sweet 4G right to your door. In a press release this morning, Sprint announced the newest cities to be blanketed with 4G and that, “later this year, Sprint will launch Boston, Miami, New York and Los Angeles, enabling millions more to harness this powerful new service.” Hit the jump for the full press release.

Sprint Launches 4G Coverage in Delaware, Florida and Michigan and Extends 4G Coverage in California

Modesto, Calif., Stockton, Calif., Jacksonville, Fla., Wilmington, Del., and Grand Rapids, Mich., Launched Today

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Today, Sprint (NYSE:S) unveiled 4G service to populous areas of California, Delaware, Florida and Michigan. With today’s launches of Modesto, Calif., Stockton, Calif., Jacksonville, Fla., Wilmington, Del., and Grand Rapids, Mich., Sprint boasts 48 metropolitan areas enabled with the new mobile broadband service, which allows for Internet traffic at super fast speeds. Unlike competitors, Sprint is the first national wireless carrier to actually launch wireless 4G technology in cities across the country. Wilmington, Jacksonville and Grand Rapids are the first cities in Delaware, Florida and Michigan to offer 4G service.

With 4G, Sprint customers experience fast mobile downloads, streaming video without the lag, and turbo-charged Web browsing. This new wireless technology boasts download speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G.1 Users can video chat with friends and family via the popular HTC EVO™ 4G, America’s first 3G/4G wireless smartphone. And in the near future, Sprint customers will be able to purchase Samsung Epic™ 4G, the company’s second 4G enabled smartphone.

With the Overdrive™ 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot by Sierra Wireless, users can create a 4G hotspot on the road or at home. With the Sprint Free Guarantee, customers can try 4G for 30 days and if they are not satisfied, they can cancel service and have the opportunity to be fully reimbursed.2 Sprint also offers simplicity and savings vs. competitors with Everything Data plans, which include unlimited Web, texting and calling while on the Sprint network for one low price.

“Sprint customers are the first in the country to use 4G with either a smartphone like HTC EVO or one of Sprint’s other 4G devices like the 3G/4G Overdrive Hotspot to wirelessly connect a laptop to the Internet,” said Matt Carter, president of 4G, Sprint. “Later this year, Sprint will launch Boston, Miami, New York and Los Angeles, enabling millions more to harness this powerful new service.”

As summer travel continues, people will find that 4G is available in many markets across the country: California – Merced, Modesto, Stockton and Visalia; Delaware – Wilmington; Florida – Jacksonville; Georgia – Atlanta and Milledgeville; Hawaii – Honolulu and Maui; Idaho – Boise; Illinois – Chicago; Maryland – Baltimore; Michigan – Grand Rapids; Missouri – Kansas City and St. Louis; New York – Rochester and Syracuse; Nevada – Las Vegas; North Carolina – Charlotte, Greensboro (along with High Point and Winston-Salem), Raleigh (along with Cary, Chapel Hill and Durham); Oregon – Eugene, Portland and Salem; Pennsylvania – Harrisburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Reading and York; Texas – Abilene, Amarillo, Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Killeen/Temple, Lubbock, Midland/Odessa, San Antonio, Waco and Wichita Falls; Utah – Salt Lake City; Virginia – Richmond; Washington – Bellingham, Seattle, Tri-Cities and Yakima. For more information, visit http://www.sprint.com/4G.

Sprint is delivering the power of 4G as the majority shareholder of Clearwire, the independent company that is building the WiMAX network.

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38 Comments
  • ken

    Yeah. But still not my city.

  • Dylan Andersen

    Misleading headline. Please change the CA portion to “Central Valley, CA”. The Bay Area and Los Angeles (two most anticipated launches) are still not live.

    • Roger A

      Yeah, have you noticed that they no longer list San Francisco as a city or area going LIVE this year… Because it ISNT going LIVE this year, which Ive kept saying over and over and over, and finally got a response that indicated this extremely vaguely by Sprint earlier this year.

      • F1

        They have been saying “later this year”,
        for Los Angeles, since the beginning of the year….
        it is ridiculous, “Modesto” on the other hand has been sited before as going on line with 4G, it is just another form of advertising, by siting 4G and SPRINT, in the mass media, hence building on the hype, with every new “town”, while dangling anticipation for the major cities i.e, New York City, L.A, SF…!

        Pretty cheesy tactic, in my opinion.

        Thank You

      • Jean

        I was in downtown LA last week… I had very speedy 4G there.

      • F1

        Could you please share:

        1. The “speed”
        2. Did the unit indicate 3G or 4G?
        3. Device i.e. Evo/USB/other?

        Thank You

  • techboy

    Come on contra Costa county. We need 4g.

  • G

    Did they just throw darts on a map to pick these cities?????? How random…

    • Roger A

      These cities in California are not random I can tell you that – these are cities that already have well established (2+ years) of WiMAX served by ClearWire. My parents live in Central Valley (Stockton) California and were thinking of getting WiMAX years ago, but I asked them to wait till they were more established and the coverage was built and there was no more 2 year contracts with extremely high term rates.

      So some of these cities are Sprint build out, but most of them are Clearwire established cities that have had WiMAX for years.

  • Joolie

    The Grand Rapids ‘coverage’ for 4G is pathetic. When the turned up 4G in Atlanta, many of the surrounding areas were covered as well. When I look at the coverage for Grand Rapids, it looks like I have to be downtown to use it. And there is no way I’m going into downtown GR.

    • Rich

      What do you mean Joolie? I just looked at the map coverage on Sprint’s site for Grand Rapids. Looks like they are covering most of the loop (I196/I96/M6). I wouldn’t say that’s downtown GR only, and what’s wrong with downtown GR anyway? It’s actually rather nice.

  • Mohammad

    They must’ve. Seems like they picked cities with only a few hundreds thousands population.

    • Roger A

      Ive given an explanation to the selected cities in posts above…

      But you do make a good point. Why was WiMAX for the most part limited to cities with only a few hundred thousands rather then high hundred thousands or the millions? Answer I think would be that Sprint is relying on 4G more then any other technology they have ever had in the past, because right now, there are more advanced phones and more advanced networks and more selection for said devices and networks now then ever…competitively speaking. Sprint is losing customers and no other company is, and to Sprint one of the ways they can prevent that or gain a customer or two is to provide excellent coverage and service with these great new phones they have coming out. To do this in a large metro area like NYC, LA, or SF would take more resources and likely kill them, so they are doing the smaller cities, learning from the experience and then when they launch in the major cities it should be (within 1-2 years) the first or second most powerful network in those cities. At least this is what an urban city planner who deals directly with “Not in my backyard” type of cell tower cities like SF has told me.

      • Sin World

        ^Basically this. NY and SF were scheduled for the 1st Quarter and were in mid 3rd, mind you that they started on work on these cities since last year. It’s just not a simple process, and they have to make sure they get everything right with these cities. More towers and infrastructure than the other cities, because of the high rise buildings and landscape.

  • http://Random Tony

    Why would Grand Rapids beat Detroit and Lansing in getting 4G?

    • Rich

      Just a guess.. but GR is much more compact than “Detroit”, as far as needed coverage for population impact. And it’s the second largest metropolitan area in Michigan… more going on there than in Lansing.

  • Joel

    Sprint’s coverage maps indicate that Raleigh, NC has extensive 4G coverage, but the actual coverage is very small. There is no 4G coverage where my company’s office is (downtown area) nor where 4 of the 5 employees live. The only time I have ever seen the 4G WiFI hotspot device work on a 4G signal was in the Sprint store. 4G for Sprint seems to be mostly advertising.

  • http://www.directorycellphones.com/ Alex Sam

    This is really very awesome news that Sprinter is extending their services in the America. They are doing very amazing job and they are also providing superb services to their consumers. I think they are following the rule of “slow and steady win the race” instead of spreading their network all over the America and after they do not handle their consumers in a right way.

  • 3 Phones Jugglin

    Ok…Jacksonville. Its not Miami, Naples, Tampa or Tallahassee….but its A Start. Wilmington doesnt surprise me…They needed to Connect Philly & Baltimore sumhow.

    Now the other places….Zzzzz

    • Feech

      Dude Tampa has 4G and parts of Pinellas too..

      • M

        The article say that Jax is the 1st city in FL to offer 4G coverage. I’m not tryin to b smart, but r u sure Tampa has 4G?

      • Kal326

        Parts of Tampa have 4G active, but the backhauls are still way down. I actually got much better 4G signal on Fowler today near I-275. Down by Raymond James football stadium 4G is near perfect. However speed wise I have never gotten over 1.2dMbps down/1Mbps up on the phone. I haven’t tried tethered to see if speed improves which generally it does.

        However this is all unofficial, given the uptick in signal quality in north Tampa I would assume to official roll out will be fairly quick.

  • http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/46b144493f914971e4a18fb570d7321a?s=80 Hold up wait! My EVO has superpowers WTF

    yeah!

  • RF Weeny

    How is the anticipated move to LTE by Clearwire and Sprint going to affect any WiMAX rollout… building a 4G network at 2500mHz and putting it on a 1900mHz frame means they can not get the bandwidth and building penetration and backhaul is too expensive to deploy in a major metro.

  • http://charlesakpan.blogspot.com Charles A

    Still no 4G love for Jersey, huh Sprint?

  • FrankieFlo

    I live in Los Angeles and all I have to say is this … if Sprint dosent hurry up with coverage in La I am seriously going to consider looking at Tmos 3g+ service that’s already available … especially if there first phone is as comparable to my Evo

  • fyay

    yay fianally 4G in the central valley maybe i’ll go bCK with Sprnt

  • http://www.webhostinglogic.com Frank Adams

    Welcome news indeed for those cities that had their 4G. Sad news for those not in the list for 4G rollout. There is nothing much of a difference between a 4G and a 3G, except for the speed. I am on a 3G and personally the speed is enough for me.

  • Swagger

    Who do you have to kill around here to get wimax in CT? Good God!

  • Tomas

    San Diego please!!!!

  • Chuck in JAX

    My EVO loves 4g in Jacksonville Florida. Oh and for those who do not know the Population in Jacksonville was over 1 million in 2008.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Jacksonville_Metropolitan_Area

    And with the Android O/S at 2.2 life is good!

  • http://www.nobrainerdeals.com Ryo

    Man I got my EVO just for 4G cant wait till it hits the SF Bay Area.

  • http://www.iwishispitinyourfood.com Ray

    They need to stop releasing 4G in middle of nowhere towns in Cali. Hurry up and get 4G in LA and SF!!!!

    • http://yupyup.com bill

      i got full 4g with my epic in la today so idk

  • http://dee.medley@gmail.com DeRon L. Medley Sr.

    When should I have 4G in Brooksville,Fl. for my HTC evo. I have been waiting and look forward to doing bigger things with my mobile phone. I would also like to know if I can download movies from my laptop and play them on my evo and how It’s done????

  • Michael

    In the latter two days I have had 4G in Manhattan and Beverly Hills using my USB dongle. Now I will finally plunge in and purchase a 4G phone from Sprint and say goodbye to Verizon. Ever since I have indicated my interest to port over to Sprint, Verizon has been kissing my hinds to keep me. Verizon must be getting desperate since a lot of my friends and family are also considering the change over. Why not Sprint has the better network at a substantially cheaper monthly price.

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