More than 50% of all phones sold this year will be capable of running on 4G or 3G data networks, according to a new report from ABI Research. “As the festive cheer of the holiday season dies away, the mood among handset vendors remains quietly confident regarding 2012,” Jake Saunders, vice president of forecasting for ABI Research said. “The outlook will yield growth in the order of 8%, netting 1.67 billion handsets shipped worldwide by the end of 2012. Particularly notable is for the first time, 3G and...

Sprint, a carrier that often touts itself as the only carrier with “truly unlimited” data plans, actually throttles its heaviest data users. Speaking at an investor conference on Thursday, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse admitted that Sprint imposes limits the top 1% of data hogs. “For those that want to abuse it, we can knock them off,” Hesse said. The executive explained that Sprint needs to throttle — or slow down the data speeds — of its heaviest users in order to make room for the growin...

Sprint on Thursday announced the first markets that will be upgraded with 4G LTE service this year. The company’s LTE network will launch in the first half of this year in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, CEO Dan Hesse revealed during a talk at the Citigroup Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference. Hesse also said that Sprint would be upgrading its 3G coverage in those markets at the same time. Sprint was the first carrier in the United States to deploy a 4G network, but it opted...

Clearwire announced recently that it has garnered another $734 million in funding after closing its public offering of Class A common stock at $2.00 per share. The public offering earned Clearwire $384.1 million after commissions, and it pulled in an additional $331.4 million selling Class B shares to Sprint. ”This equity raise is a critical step for Clearwire to achieve its long-term business plan of creating the first wide-channel TDD-LTE 4G network in the U.S.,” president and CEO of Clearwire ...

Sprint and Clearwire on Thursday announced a new 4G LTE and WiMAX agreement that will extend over the next few years. The agreement could be worth up to $1.6 billion over the next four years for Clearwire, which it will earn selling its services to Sprint. “These agreements are a result of the technical MOU we outlined during our third quarter results call and extend our relationship with Clearwire,” Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said. “It provides Sprint improved pricing, allows us to continue to pr...

It worked. 4G has been marketed so well by wireless carriers and vendors that people want it even if they don’t quite know why. A recent survey conducted by market research and intelligence firm In-Stat found that 75% of respondents listed 4G as one of the features their ideal phone would include. When asked which carrier offered the fastest 4G speeds, most respondents were left stymied. “Although 4G is an important feature for handset buyers, there is a lot of confusion surrounding 4G,” In-...

Sprint and Clearwire are negotiating a network-sharing contract that will last beyond 2012, Bloomberg recently reported, noting a 29% surge in Clearwire’s stock price earlier Wednesday. CEO Dan Hesse explained on a conference call that Sprint could take advantage of Clearwire’s network in an effort to balance traffic on its planned 4G LTE network. While Sprint is “making very good progress on the technical front with Clearwire,” a deal is not yet final or definite. Sprint announced ear...

Sprint announced on Wednesday that it will launch the HTC EVO Design 4G on October 23rd for $99.99 with a new two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate. The EVO Design 4G offers a 1.2GHz processor, a 4-inch qHD display, a 5-megapixel camera capable of recording HD video, a 1.3-megapixel camera for video chat, support for Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Additional features of this Sprint world phone include 3G/4G mobile hotspot support for sharing your connection with othe...

Global shipments of smartphones with embedded 4G are expected to grow at a staggering rate over the next five years, reaching 245 million devices in 2016. Market research and intelligence firm ABI Research recently released 4G smartphone shipment projections that show shipments growing at a compound rate of 72% annually over the next five years. Just 4.6 million 4G smartphones shipped worldwide in 2010 according to the firm, but the rapid deployment of LTE networks combined with consumers’ collective ne...

Sprint announced at its Strategy Update meeting on Friday that it has adjusted its 4G rollout plans in order to deploy the carrier’s new network more rapidly. The carrier will also convert to a single-network architecture, moving away from CDMA and WiMAX as it rolls out its LTE network. Sprint had initially announced a 3-5 year plan for the rollout, and on Friday network operations head Steve Elfman confirmed that Sprint’s 4G LTE network rollout will be largely complete by the end of 2013. Sprint...

Sprint announced back in August that it would be hosting a “Strategy Update” meeting today, and the uncommon phrasing set our imaginations aflutter. Will it be about the iPhone? Well, we already know Sprint will carry both the iPhone and iPhone 4S beginning the 14th, but Sprint has been eerily quiet about finally procuring the world’s most popular smartphone so we wouldn’t be surprised to hear more about it today. There’s also a supposed $20 billion deal with Apple that the compa...

This has been a crazy, crazy, crazy week so far, but it’s not over yet. Sprint is holding a “Strategy Update” meeting Friday morning in New York City and BGR will be reporting live to bring you all the news as it unfolds. Will we hear more about Sprint’s deal with Apple and the iPhone? Perhaps. Will we hear more about Sprint’s plan to find a way out of its current 4G jam? Almost certainly. No one knows exactly what’s in store from Sprint tomorrow, but we have a pretty good ...

We are here at Samsung’s press event in New York City where the phone maker just took the wraps off of Sprint’s brand new GALAXY S II smartphone. The GALAXY S II Epic 4G Touch offers full support for Sprint’s 4G WiMAX network and is equipped with 16GB of storage, a large Super AMOLED Plus display, an 8-megapixel camera capable of recording 1080p video, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chats, and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. We really like the textured back of the phone, which giv...

During a press event in New York City on Tuesday, Samsung officially took the wraps off of its U.S. GALAXY S II smartphone family. Sprint’s Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch will support the carrier’s 4G WiMAX network while the T-Mobile and AT&T devices will run on each carrier’s respective HSPA+ network. Each iteration of the GALAXY S II smartphone is equipped with a 4.52-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of storage, an 8-megapixel camera capable of recording 10...