Sprint To Roll Out 4G Commercially This Year

Sprint announced today that it will be launching its WiMAX-based 4G network in eight major American cities before the end of 2010. Not much by way of a surprise in which cities Sprint is choosing: Boston, Denver, Kansas City, Houston, Minneapolis, New York, San Fran, and Washington, D.C.

Now the real question is whether or not this means Sprint will be launching 4G phone support this year. Sprint has previously said that 4G will be available on some of its handsets by this summer, but infrastructure rollouts are only made more difficult by the fact that no phones on the market yet support 4G.

Though this would mean Sprint would have to renege on its previous claims, it is still possible that 4G will only be available via laptop cards this year as it will be on Verizon. Besides, given the limited scope of Sprint’s plans, chances are that any sort of travel will kill your 4G coverage.