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Wireless carrier Sprint announced 20 addition markets for its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, bringing faster data speeds to customers in such locations as Bridgeport/Stamford/Norwalk, Connecticut, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Omaha, Nebraska, Peoria, Illinois and Sarasota/Bradenton, Florida.
Sprint said it is expects to cover 250 million people with 4G LTE by mid-year and also announced Spark in Provo, Utah, and Trenton, N.J, as well as the upcoming availability of HD Voice.
Spark is an enhanced LTE service that’s built for data and designed to deliver peak wireless speeds of 60Mbps today on capable devices, with the potential for speeds three times as fast by late next year, according to a company release.
The company’s HD Voice technology is also now available to customers in Provo, and will soon be available in Trenton. HD Voice is a Sprint standard for mobile phones where background noise is reduced and sound quality is enhanced.
HD Voice is designed to provide a better experience than a landline. A typical phone without HD Voice offers four octaves of sound, but a phone with HD Voice offers seven—10 is considered perfect hearing.
However, a company release noted HD Voice capability requires call between two Sprint HD Voice enabled devices on upgraded areas of the Sprint network.
“Sprint’s all-new network is providing our customers significantly better call quality and faster data speeds in more places,” John Saw, chief network officer at Sprint, said in a statement. “Customers in Provo and Trenton will be particularly pleased with the power of Sprint Spark – say goodbye to slow downloads and content that lags.”
The company’s 4G LTE network, available in 402 cities, also provides benefits to customers of Sprint’s prepaid brands – Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile USA.
Customers with Sprint Spark-enabled devices can select the Framily Plan – a pricing program available to new and existing customers that lets consumers decide who they consider family.
The more people added to the group, up to 10 phone lines, the greater the savings for everyone on the plan.
Users can build a group of at least seven people and everyone gets unlimited talk, text and 1GB of data for $25 per month per line, excludes taxes and surcharges.For only $20 per month per line, Framily Plan members can buy up to unlimited data, and they are eligible for a new phone every year, and they get unlimited features are while on the Sprint network.
Earlier this month the company launched Prepaid, a program similar to the company’s prepaid brands Virgin Mobile USA and Boost Mobile.
Prepaid expands on the pay-as-you-go no-contract plan introduced last year with new pricing, including smartphone plans for as low as $45 per month, expanded merchandising and a stronger device lineup that includes LTE and Spark-capable options.
At launch, top-selling smartphones eligible for Sprint Prepaid plans are the Spark-enabled Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, 4G LTE-capable Samsung Galaxy S3 and 3G Moto G. In addition, the Apple iPhone 4s Pre-owned is also available on the prepaid plan.