Sprint's LTE network is now available in 32 metropolitan areas with new markets announced today. Operator has started offering LTE services in Hutchinson and McPherson, Kan.; New Bedford/Fall River, Mass.; Wichita Falls, Texas; and major Chicago suburban areas including  in Addison, Bolingbrook, Des Plaines, Downers Grove, Kankakee, Rockford, Joliet, Naperville, Palatine, Plainfield, Ill., along with Gary, Ind.. 

Operator's LTE network build is under way in more than 115 additional cities within the existing nationwide Sprint 3G footprint. Some of the major metropolitan areas in which Sprint 4G LTE is expected to be available in the coming months are Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans; New York; Philadelphia; San Francisco and Washington, D.C

Sprint expects the rapid deployment to reach 12,000 sites this year and the program to be largely complete by the end of 2013.

Sprint currently uses separate equipment to deploy services on 800 MHz and 1.9 GHz spectrum.  Through Network Vision Sprint will install new network equipment and software that brings together multiple spectrum bands, or airwaves, on a single, multimode base station. The new equipment makes it easy to accommodate additional spectrum bands.