Sprint Announces World’s First All-Wireless Small Cell – The Sprint Magic Box

03 Mayo 2017, 13:32 PM EDT

Small unit plugs into power, dramatically improves customer experience, all at no additional cost

Low–cost solution enables Sprint to cost-effectively and rapidly densify its LTE Plus network

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
Sprint (NYSE:S) today unveiled the Sprint Magic Box, the world’s first
all–wireless small cell. Sprint Magic Box is a revolutionary new
plug–and–play LTE small cell for businesses and consumers that
dramatically improves data coverage and increases download and upload
speeds on average by 200 percent.¹The breakthrough new
technology allows Sprint to very quickly and cost–effectively densify
its nationwide LTE Plus network, and provide an improved experience for
its millions of customers today and in the future.

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Sprint Magic Box, a new plug-and-play LTE small cell for businesses and consumers, dramatically impr ...

Sprint Magic Box, a new plug-and-play LTE small cell for businesses and consumers, dramatically improves indoor data coverage and speeds. (Photo: Business Wire)

The Sprint Magic Box is an indoor, self-configuring small cell, about
the size of a shoebox, that’s easy for customers to install. It requires
no implementation, labor, or rental costs that are a hurdle for many
traditional small cell deployments. The unit is simply placed near a
window and plugged into a power outlet. Sprint Magic Box connects to a
nearby Sprint cell site and within minutes is up and running. Customers
immediately have a better experience inside their businesses and homes
while streaming videos, surfing the web, and using their favorite online
apps and services.

Sprint designed the Sprint Magic Box so that customers in surrounding
areas will also enjoy the benefits of the locally installed unit. One
Sprint Magic Box provides average coverage of 30,000 square feet indoors
and can benefit adjacent Sprint customers inside the building. The
signal can also extend coverage 100 meters outside a building,
benefitting Sprint customers in nearby buildings and improving
street–level network performance.

Sprint Magic Box is free to use for qualifying businesses and consumers.²

Accelerating Sprint’s Network Densification Strategy
Sprint
Magic Box greatly accelerates Sprint’s strategy to densify its network
as it improves performance and builds a strong foundation for 5G. It
uses Sprint’s ample, dedicated 2.5 GHz spectrum with backhaul provided
by Sprint’s outdoor macro cell sites. This removes the cost of backhaul,
along with many of the challenges typically associated with small cell
deployments, providing a low-cost, effective way to make the Sprint
network – already performing at its best–ever–levels – even better for
customers.

“Sprint Magic Box is going to quickly transform our network, and it is
key to delivering an amazing experience to customers today as we build
the kind of dense urban infrastructures needed for 5G,” said Dr. John
Saw, Sprint CTO. “By leveraging our deep spectrum trove, Sprint has the
ability to blanket its network with an all-wireless small cell that
delivers this kind of dramatic performance boost with zero backhaul,
permitting, and engineering costs.”

Sprint Magic Box deployment has begun in several cities across the
country such as Denver, San Francisco, Indianapolis, New York, Chicago,
and Houston. In the past three months downloads speeds across these
markets have significantly improved as Sprint rolled-out its toolkit of
densification technologies such as Sprint Magic Box, outdoor small
cells, three-channel carrier aggregation, and launched iconic new High
Performance User Equipment (HPUE) smartphones.

Unleashing Sprint’s Spectrum Advantage
The development of
Sprint Magic Box is part of Sprint’s ongoing program to improve its
network through its Densification and Optimization strategy using some
of the most advanced technologies in wireless. With 204 MHz of spectrum
nationwide, and more than 160 MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum in the top 100
U.S. markets, Sprint has more spectrum capacity than any other U.S.
carrier, an advantage that Sprint Magic Box is designed to maximize.

Sprint Magic Box is one of many network innovations taking advantage of
the company’s deep spectrum holdings. Sprint continues to improve
coverage, reliability and speeds by adding more capacity where it’s
needed with a toolbox of solutions including three-channel carrier
aggregation and HPUE. In March in New Orleans, Sprint was the first
carrier to debut
Sprint Gigabit Class LTE on a live commercial network in the U.S.

Looking ahead, Sprint will continue its deployment of three-channel
carrier aggregation on 2.5 GHz sites. The company also anticipates
leveraging a multitude of advanced technologies including four-channel
carrier aggregation, 256 QAM, 4×4 MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output)
and Massive MIMO to further enhance the capacity and coverage of its 2.5
GHz TDD-LTE spectrum.

Business and consumer customers interested in the Sprint Magic Box can
learn more about product availability and see if they qualify for the
product at www.sprint.com/getmagicbox.

For Media: More information about Sprint Magic Box is available at http://newsroom.sprint.com/magic-box.

About Sprint:
Sprint (NYSE: S) is a communications services
company that creates more and better ways to connect its customers to
the things they care about most. Sprint served 59.7 million connections
as of Mar. 31, 2017 and is widely recognized for developing, engineering
and deploying innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G
service from a national carrier in the United States; leading
no-contract brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and
Assurance Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk
capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint has been
named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) North America for the
past five years. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.

¹ Signal and speeds based on optimal conditions for most
Sprint devices.

² If a customer no longer wants the Sprint Magic Box at their
location, Sprint will make arrangements for the customer to return the
device at no cost. Sprint may charge up to $140 to a Sprint customer’s
service account if the device is not returned.
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