C Spire Wireless, formerly known as Cellular South, unveiled plans to begin rolling out LTE services beginning later this year. The carrier said it planned to invest $60 million in providing coverage to 20 Mississippi markets covering 2,700 square miles and approximately 1.2 million potential customers with 360 LTE-enabled cell sites.
The carrier said it expects customers will see download speeds of between 4 megabits and 12 megabits per second, with upload speeds of between 1 Mbps and 5 Mbps.
The launch plans come as the carrier reportedly missed its original target to launch LTE services by the end of last year. The network is expected to use 700 MHz spectrum assets C Spire picked up in the 2008 auction.
C Spire reported late last year that it would spend $100 million to enhance its mobile broadband offerings across its markets. The carrier is also the only rural operator currently offering Apple’s iPhone 4S device.
“Our network teams and technicians are working hard to prepare for the rollout of our 4G LTE network later this year,” said David Smith, VP of network engineering for C Spire, in a statement. “We’ve been aggressively deploying fiber optic cable, installing enhanced backhaul connections and microwave rings and adding network capacity to hundreds of cell sites in anticipation of the launch.”
C Spire had tapped LightSquared as an LTE roaming partner last year as part of a bilateral agreement, which seems to have fizzled following LightSquared’s inability to gain access to its spectrum assets.
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