Sprint Spark was announced today, the carrier’s new “super-high-speed” capability which is going to bring peak data speeds of up to 50-60 megabits per second. Sprint believes that the data speeds will grow as the technology matures. To prove its point, the carrier demonstrated 1Gbps or gigabit per second live over-the-air speed today at its lab near Silicon Valley. Sprint says that its technically feasible to offer over 2Gbps of over-the-air speed per sector, thanks to Spark. The carrier believes that this new wireless technology will allow it to surpass the data speeds offered by its rivals.
The new service is going live with “limited availability” in five markets initially, which includes New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Tampa. Sprint plans to deploy Spark in 100 of the largest cities in America over the next three years. It expects that over 100 million people in the U.S. will have access to Spark by the end of 2014, while its 4G LTE service is expected to reach 250 million people by mid-2014. Existing smartphones won’t be compatible with Spark. Smartphones with tri-band hardware, capable of utilizing all spectrum bands used by Sprint, will arrive starting next month. LG, Samsung and HTC are few of the companies that are initially going to be provide smartphones compatible with Sprint Spark.
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