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By Edwin Chan and Sinead Carew
BURLINGAME, Calif., Oct 30 (Reuters) - Sprint Corp promised to gradually offer wireless data speeds far in excessof those offered by bigger rivals like Verizon, as it hopes touse recently acquired wireless airwaves to regain market share.
At its research labs on the outskirts of San Francisco,Sprint on Wednesday outlined plans to expand Spark, a service itis now building with speeds of 50-60 megabits per second, whichis being rolled out initially in five cities: Los Angeles,Tampa, Miami, Chicago and New York.
In comparison, Verizon Wireless says itprovides customers data speeds of 5-12 megabits per second butits high-speed network covers 303 million people.
After losing subscribers for years, No. 3 U.S. mobileservice provider Sprint is looking to distinguish itself fromrivals AT&T Inc, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile US, which are ahead of it in high-speed upgrades.
"Sprint has a much broader set of spectrum in more marketsthan their competitors," said Andy Castonguay, principal analystat Machina Research. "Their spectrum holdings give them aunique advantage."
But he cautioned a lot of Sprint's plans seemed theoreticalfor the moment and the industry has to see the technology inaction to understand the impact on the consumer. With rapidlyincreasing bandwidth, other issues such as power consumption,battery life and heat will come to the fore.
"It's going to push the boundaries of power consumption andantenna design. It's going to be very interesting to watch thenext generation of devices," he said.
Sprint demonstrated to reporters at its Burlingame labsultra-fast wireless data speeds of 1 gigabits per second, about16 times faster than its current peak speeds and rivaling thefastest wireline speeds.
It also showed off potential applications of ultrahigh-speed wireless, from online multiplayer gaming tosimultaneous streams of video based on next-generation "4K" TVtechnology.
AT&T shrugged off Sprint's claims but declined to comment onits own speeds.
"A demo counts as much as making a touchdown with no otherplayers on the field," AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said.
AWAITING SPRINT'S PLANS
Sprint has tried to win back customers through initiativessuch as plans that offer unlimited data for life. On Wednesdayit posted a decline in third-quarter revenue after losing moresubscribers than expected following the shutdown of its oldernetwork.
Investors have been anxious to see what Sprint, which is 80percent-owned by Japan's SoftBank Corp, would do withits partner's financial backing and the experience of Softbankfounder Masayoshi Son, who was able to quickly turn around hisown company's mobile business.
They are also anxious to hear how much network upgradeswould cost. The company said it would provide capital spendingdetails when it reports fourth-quarter results.
Sprint's plans include antennas that use 8 transmitters andreceivers versus the current 2-plus, devices capable of handlingtri-band frequencies and employing its spectrum range to achievepeak speeds of up to 150 to 180 mbps by late 2015.
Softbank has expertise in this area that will come in handy,Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told reporters in Burlingame. And it plansto use the latest technology and airwaves from its buyout ofClearwire Corp to boost its network capacity.
"We paid a lot of money for Clearwire and that spectrum. Wedid it because the 800 frequencies were so valuable that if youcould put it all together ..., the whole is greater than the sumof the parts."
The company said it plans to deploy Sprint Spark in about100 of America's largest cities during the next three years.
Sprint expects 100 million people in the United States willhave Sprint Spark by the end of 2014.
It said that its high-speed service based on Long TermEvolution (LTE) technology will be available to about 250million people by mid-2014, compared with its 200 million targetfor the end of 2013.
Sprint said the first devices that work on both its ownexisting spectrum and Clearwire's spectrum will go on sale inearly November from HTC Corp, LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics.
Alcatel Lucent and Nokia said they arehelping Sprint with its network upgrade.
Sprint shares closed up 25 cents or almost 4 percent at$6.93 on the New York Stock Exchange after the news.
