1-2-3 HPUE

By Günther Ottendorfer, Chief Operating Officer – Technology

Today is a great day here at Boost Mobile and Sprint as we launch the ZTE MAX XL from Boost, our first prepaid only smartphone with High Performance User Equipment (HPUE)!

Back in December we first unveiled HPUE, a breakthrough innovation for smartphones and devices that can extend our 2.5 GHz coverage by up to 30 percent, including indoors. Back then we forecasted that the first devices would come in the first half of 2017.

With the global standard just recently ratified on December 6, 2016, we are very pleased to have seen a quick adoption of the technology, with 1, 2, 3 HPUE devices now coming to market. The LG G6 was announced on February 26, and the Samsung Galaxy S8 was announced on March 29.  Now the ZTE MAX XL joins our growing portfolio. Three devices in three months – that’s great progress!

Sprint’s Spectrum Advantage

We’re excited about our HPUE innovation because it improves the spectrum coverage characteristic of our 2.5 GHz (high-band) spectrum to make it close to our 1.9 GHz (mid-band) spectrum. High-band spectrum is great at delivering a lot of data at very fast speeds, but it doesn’t travel as far as mid or low-band spectrum, particularly indoors. HPUE changes that for our customers with HPUE enabled devices.

With HPUE our high-band 2.5 GHz coverage nearly matches our 1.9 GHz coverage outdoors. And indoors, where 60 to 70 percent of all wireless traffic is generated, HPUE enables our 2.5 GHz spectrum to achieve up to 90 percent of the indoor penetration achieved by our 1.9 GHz spectrum.

All of this means that our customers can have a better network experience with increased coverage, more capacity, and faster speeds than before!

HPUE is just one of the many innovations at Sprint that take advantage of our deep spectrum holdings. In the land of Unlimited, spectrum is King. And with 204 MHz of spectrum and 160 MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum in the top 100 markets, Sprint has more spectrum capacity than any other U.S. carrier. This means we can keep meeting our customers’ demand for data in an Unlimited world!

Our LTE network covers more than 300 million people across the country. And in the second half of 2016 we achieved our best-ever performance in cities across the country, setting a new Sprint company record for highest number of RootMetrics® Metro RootScore® Awards (246 outright or tied) for reliability, speed, data, call, text, or overall network performance in 125 markets. In addition, Sprint’s overall network reliability continues to beat T-Mobile and performs within 1 percent of Verizon and AT&T based on key metrics from Nielsen drive test data.1

With our extended network toolbox, new device innovations such as HPUE, and the highest-capacity network in the country, it’s a great time to be a Sprint or Boost Mobile customer!

You ain’t seen nothing yet!