Sprint today said that it plans to launch its mobile 5G network in May. The list of cities that'll be first to get Sprint 5G include Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Kansas City, with Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix, and Washington D.C. also expected to get Sprint 5G in the first half of 2019. Sprint's 5G is currently on-air in downtown Chicago for testing and optimizing, and a demo video showed the carrier getting 421Mbps down in a speed test.
At launch, Sprint says that its mobile 5G network coverage will range between nearly 30 square miles covering Midtown and lower Manhattan to around 230 square miles in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. The total coverage of Sprint's initial 5G footprint will be more than 1,000 square miles across all nine cities.
Also confirmed today is that Sprint's 5G network will be available to Google Fi customers. Google Fi subscribers with Sprint 5G-compatible smartphones that are also Designed for Fi will automatically connect to Sprint 5G when they're in an area with that coverage.
Finally, Sprint today revealed the HTC 5G Hub, a 5G-enabled hotspot device. The device includes a 5-inch 1280x720 display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor with Snapdragon X50 5G modem, built-in Gigabit Ethernet port, microSD card slot, and a 7660mAh battery. It can connect up to 20 devices to Sprint's 5G network at once. The device also runs Android 9 Pie and has USB-C 3.1 as well as DisplayPort support.
The HTC 5G Hub is coming in May for an undisclosed price.
