5G Phones at MWC 2022? Not Impossible, Sprint Says

BARCELONA—Sprint is preparing to launch 5G smartphones early next year, CTO John Saw said at a Mobile World Congress roundtable here in Barcelona.

When asked about whether we should wait to see smartphones announced for Dart's upcoming 2.5GHz, 5G network at MWC 2022, Saw said, "I recall that's about the right timeframe. It's an aggressive timeframe, and we do need to get the network upgraded."

Yesterday at MWC, Sprint announced its first six 5G cities. The first three will be Atlanta, Chicago, and LA, Saw said, and the side by side three will be Washington D.C., Houston, and Dallas. Sprint chose those cities because they accept a lot of customers in each one, a "critical mass" of 2.5GHz cell sites, and sufficient spectrum to pull off its spectrum plan, Saw said.

All U.s.a. carriers have been trying to 1-up each other with 5G announcements hither at MWC. Yesterday, T-Mobile said it'due south working on getting 30 cities upwards and running by the time those smartphones arrive next year. Verizon says it will have 5G stock-still wireless for homes in Sacramento this yr, and AT&T will launch later this year with a puck, or wireless hotspot.

While the basic 5G standard is now set up and the MWC halls are total of 5G network equipment, we're nonetheless waiting on 5G consumer devices. Samsung showed off a working Verizon home modem and a paradigm tablet at the show. We've heard that Netgear will have a version of its M1 hotspot for AT&T, which volition have Qualcomm X24 4G and X50 5G modems adjacent, but phone makers won't exist set up for 5G until side by side year.

Similar T-Mobile, Sprint is focused on smartphones rather than hotspots (which AT&T is doing) or home net access (which Verizon is doing.) Simply unlike T-Mobile, Saw said Dart sees an opportunity in 5G hotspots and connected PCs a trivial further down the road.

"It's not going to be a hotspot, it's going to exist a phone, because that'southward what customers want," Saw said. "We will, over time, develop hotspots, mini MiFis, and we will besides develop connected PCs."

Dart's programme is to use Nokia's massive MIMO prison cell sites—which have 128 antennas—to split its relatively broad array of 2.5GHz spectrum into 4G and 5G sides. Dart has 120-160MHz of 2.5GHz spectrum in most of the land, Saw said; 60MHz will exist used for LTE, and 60-100MHz volition initially be used for 5G. 5G volition just about double the capacity per cell sector on Sprint's towers, although the real-life speeds consumers get will exist based on the capabilities of their phones.

Too, unlike T-Mobile and Verizon, Sprint still relies heavily on 2G for its voice network. The company has been behind its competitors in switching customers to vocalisation-over-LTE, and Saw said that's considering Dart wanted to make certain LTE coverage was good enough. "The plan is to start turning upwards [VoLTE markets] towards the end of the year," Saw said.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/19839/5g-phones-at-mwc-2019-not-impossible-sprint-says

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