Sprint Will Begin Offering 4G LTE in Mid-July

Sprint's switch from WiMAX to LTE will pass a major milestone when the carrier begins offering the high-speed service in a handful of cities in a few weeks.

Sprint was the first carrier in the United States to have a 4G wireless network, but sometimes there are disadvantages of being the early bird. It chose WiMAX for this service, while its rivals all picked LTE after this rival data standard turned out to be faster.

Last year, Sprint began the process of switching to LTE, and will begin offering this 4G service in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and San Antonio on July 15.

The carrier began offering LTE-enabled phones in the spring, and customers who have one -- and are lucky enough to live on the right area -- will be able to access this high-speed service while keeping their unlimited Wireless Data plan.

Smartphones with LTE support include the already-available HTC Evo 4G LTE, LG Viper 4G LTE and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, while sales of the Samsung Galaxy S III will begin July 1.

By the end of 2013, Sprint expects to have largely completed the build out of its 4G LTE nationwide network. Its legacy WiMAX network will continue to run for several years after that.

But Wait, There's More

While it's adding LTE, this carrier is also improving its 3G CDMA network, and promises that it is going to offer better signal strength, fewer dropped/blocked calls, faster data speeds, expanded coverage and better overall performance.

"The performance of both the 4G LTE and improved 3G networks are exceeding our expectations," said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse.