Over the next few weeks, Sprint intends on introducing a few phones which will be capable of 4G LTE speeds. However, the only problem here is that those speeds can only be reached if users found their way to Kankakee, a town about 60 miles south of Chicago, Illinois. For now, that is the only spot Sprint has said that the service is active but the carrier has mentioned that its 4G LTE services will have expanded to six larger markets by June.
The markets are Kansas City MO, Baltimore, Dallas, San Antonio, Atlanta and Houston. The carrier has iterated further that by the end of the year, 120 million users will be covered. It is not clear why Sprint chose the town of Kankakee which has an average of 31.2% of its population under the poverty line (from 2006 – 2010) as opposed to 13.8% across the rest of the country.
Sprint’s move to push the LTE capable phones before the network is officially up is apparently part of their strategy to catch up with its competitors, AT&T and Verizon. A Sprint spokeswoman said that the carrier has 4G LTE towers operating in several markets but would not reveal where they are. Will you be making a pilgrimage to Kankakee with your Sprint 4G device? Let us know with a comment below.