Today, Sprint turned on the third band for Sprint Spark, which is Band 41 (aka 2500MHz or 2.5GHz spectrum). This is paired with their 800MHz, and 1900MHz bands to create a tri-band network, which they call Sprint Spark. It’s theoretical speeds are said to be around 150Mbps. Of course, when it comes to theoretical speeds, you likely won’t ever see them. According to S4GRU – which is a site that covers just Sprint’s network – posted a breakdown of which markets have band 41 live as of today. You can see a screenshot of that table at the bottom of this post.
This carrier aggregation is a step towards LTE-Advanced. Obviously there’s still a long way to go. But it is a step in the right direction. With the 2500MHz band, it allows for more bandwidth and faster speeds, while Sprint’s 800MHz band allows for better building-penetration. So theoretically, you should get the best of both worlds here. And this should provide a better experience for all of Sprint’s customers. Sprint has been testing band 41 in four markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and Houston. Today, that number grows to 40.
Over on Reddit we are seeing users getting speeds of around 70Mbps on Sprint’s LTE. Definitely a nice thing to see. However, right now only a few devices are capable of using Band 41 right now. These include the Samsung Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, LG G4, G Flex 2, the ZTE Hotspot and the HTC One M9.
Definitely nice to see improvements like this coming to Sprint’s network. Always great to see faster speeds, especially for those with unlimited data plans. Sprint also just recently kicked off their All-In plan, where you can get a new smartphone (limited to a few flagships right now) and get unlimited talk, text and data for just $80. Which is probably the best deal you can find right now for unlimited data.
If you want to be sure you are connected to Band 41 in one of these markets, go into the dialer and type #DEBUG# and then go through the engineering menu to LTE to see if its serving cell 2. If you need additional help, we urge you to head over to S4GRU, as they will be of much more help, specializing in Sprint’s network.