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International support is a secondary consideration for Sprint, certainly not nearly enough to merit such an unusual SIM arrangement (at least for an American carrier, and particularly a CDMA one). Sprint used to have a great international data plan (especially for CDMA roaming) years ago but it was discontinued about 3 years ago IIRC. I would turn it on before I went overseas (it required temporarily switching plans to it). The only way they would let you keep it is if you kept it active on your account, which while in the US didn't make sense. In any case, with great prepaid SIM options available in just about every country nowadays, it's not such a big deal anymore. As for Verizon, I think Vodafone is who kept pushing them to offer GSM capable sets over the years, which is a good thing. These days with most CDMA handset radios handling GSM too, adding GSM to a CDMA device isn't that difficult an undertaking. One thing I have to commend Sprint on is that on most of their GSM-capable devices (as limited a selection as that may have been) they've tended to keep the GSM SIM unlocked for usage outside North America. I do believe the iPhone though is shipped locked unfortunately.

Well, Big Red has been using removable SIMs all this time. How? Simple, the use SIMs for the LTE side of the network only. I suspect that's exactly what Sprint is going to do. If that's the case, one would think they could have been using them all this time.

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough... I don't have a problem with the moniker "One" per se. In fact, I think it's pretty clever. What I have a problem with is using it now, after they have already released other models named "One [something]" (X, X+, V). That's quite confusing. If it was the first time they had used One in the name it would be a different story. Imagine if Samsung called the Galaxy S4 just "the Galaxy". In any case, I wish HTC all the best in their competition against The Samsung-Apple doupoly.

Thanks, I really hope so. Some of the early reports indicated some strange UMTS/WCDMA bands in Sprint's device. Rich over at phonescoop initially showed GSM and UMTS capability for Sprint's device, but has since redone the page without GSM and UMTS. A bit worrying because he's usually pretty good at putting up the right specs for devices. When I got my Photon, it having overseas GSM/WCDMA capability was definitely a one of the features that sold me on the device. I heard his comments to mean that they will ensure better interoperability with GSM by stopping their annoying use of embedded SIMs and not disabling GSM features in devices, however, not necessarily to mean that they will introduce CDMA device portability using SIMs (which is a relatively common practice on Asian CDMA networks, but one which US networks have been loath to adopt).

"The One" (oh Lord, what a silly name, given that they already have a One X, One V, etc.) passed the FCC today (FCCID NM8PN07200). No LTE800 on this puppy. In fact, I have a gut feeling GSM may be disabled on Sprint's variant. This wouldn't surprise anyone given that this is a company that does such inane things as using soldered-on SIMs.

Question is, will there be one or two models which work all over a-la the iPhone, or will there be a gazillion variants like the SGSIII. To the best of my knowledge, the device hasn't passed the FCC yet so it's hard to tell what exactly we'll be getting. Launch is supposed to be late next month, but if there will be a separate Sprint variant, it could come out later than that. Interestingly, Verizon is not on the list of carriers who would be selling the phone right now.

I am not sure the statement "Most Sprint phones in 2011 were given it" is accurate. Remember that the the EVO 3D didn't come out until just before the second half of the year. Remember too that the 4S was an incremental upgrade, not a brand new phone from scratch. As such, it is conceivable that Apple wasn't going to make a change as major as supporting a brand new band they never covered before (compared to the iPhone 5, which already supports that band). Yes, but don't forget the CLR band's LTE inclusion which no provider supports. It should also be noted that band class 5 is a subset of band class 26. In other words, what I am trying to say is that it from a technical perspective, it will be easier for Apple to add band 26 support in the incremental 5S version than it was for them to add CDMA BC10 support in the incremental 4S version. This may sway a decision in favor of including it on the 5S.

It's possible that there wasn't enough time for Apple to prep for 800CDMA when the 4S came out. It would have required more significant changes to the radio and antenna in the device than would be required in the 5S. In the 5, the antenna and radio is already there covering ESMR and CLR, which are two contiguous bands. Hence extending LTE into the other band should be a simpler undertaking than putting CDMA800 in the 4S, which didn't include the 800 band at all in the previous model. On the other hand, Apple also included LTE support in the CLR and PCS bands (A-F), even though no carrier has deployed LTE in those bands. Therefore, I do not think it would be all that surprising for them to "stretch" their existing CLR band LTE coverage into Sprint's CDMA 800 band which abuts it.

I wouldn't be so unequivocal about that. Remember that the iPhone 5 already has LTE on the cellular band (band 5) and CDMA support for the ESMR band (which directly abuts the cellular band). Technically, it shouldn't be that difficult to extend the LTE coverage by 10Mhz more and cover ESMR as well (band 26, which covers both ESMR and cellular). In fact, radio, switch, and antenna technology has made decent strides in the past year and it's not inconceivable that Apple may be able to go back to producing a single-SKU device for North America when the iPhone 5S comes out, probably in October. At the very least, Verizon is going to require that Apple implement AWS support in their 5S which is going to necessitate a redesign of the radio in the iPhone. Given that, my bet is that apple is going to figure out some way of supporting both both AT&T and Verizon's 700 bands in one device. Last year that would have been exceedingly difficult to implement but nowadays it should be easier to overcome technically.

Meanwhile, in the news from the competition department... AT&T officially "launched" LTE in South Hampton Roads today. I put launched in quotes because coverage is still quite limited, though where it exists it's pretty good... pulled about 35mbps down near Lynnhaven mall yesterday. T-Mobile also "launched" HSPA1900 coverage in SHR a few weeks back. Its footprint too however is rather limited. Speeds are good though, about 9mbps down if you are where you can get a UMTS1900 signal.

Is it though? Didn't Sprint go through "rebranding" in the past seven or so years and now their band is 814-824Mhz?

My guess would be that by a year from now, most LTE capable phones sold in the US would include bands 4, 25, and 26. These fully cover Sprint and T-Mobile and partially cover VZW and AT&T. Devices sold by Verizon would add 13 and those by AT&T will add band 17. Basically, there would be two types of devices sold in the US: 4/25/26/13 and 4/25/26/17. These two combinations would pretty much support any conceivable reframing any of the big 4 might undertake in the next few years.

Robert, what's the expected maximum usable range/cell reach for LTE on 800Mhz?

I'm going to assume that this handset also supports GSM900/1800 and UMTS2100 and therefore as for SVDO... given that it does have SVLTE, I would rather take the availability of having fast 3G when using the phone overseas over having SVDO on CDMA if that's the tradeoff here.

Verizon, even before the deal with the cable companies was announced last year, already owned a large swath of AWS spectrum, plus, they knew that there was a chance for them to acquire more AWS spectrum from the cable companies, and they knew that nearly a year ago (in other words, they were actively pursuing additional AWS spectrum for LTE). Therefore, it is reasonable for Verizon to have wished that the AWS band would have been added to the phone (just like AT&T obviously did - even though AT&T too had not yet deployed LTE on AWS). Therefore, it is not unreasonable to wonder why it was omitted from Verizon's variant. The G-band is an additional 5Mhz to each link (upload and download), located contiguously with the rest of the PCS band on each link direction. If I were to have counted both the upload and download links together then I would have said "add 10Mhz to 120Mhz" instead of saying "add 5Mhz to 60Mhz". in any case , adding 10Mhz to the existing 120Mhz is a rather trivial effort technically, which means that it is not unreasonable to wonder why did Apple not just go ahead and put LTE band 25 in AT&T's version rather than band 2.

Ahmm, yeah, everything you just said might have a point if it wasn't for the fact that the AT&T variant of the iPhone 5 does have the AWS band. So that kind of blows away your theory on that one. Plus, AT&T got support for the AWS band despite the fact that to the best of my knowledge, like Verizon, they haven't even deployed LTE on it yet. Oh, and Verizon already owned a bunch AWS frequencies before the latest FCC action. The "approval" they got was for additional AWS spectrum they purchased from the cable co's (part of which they sold/swapped with T-Mobile). Why? Because adding the G-band means adding just 5Mhz to the tail end of an existing 60Mhz-wide band. So from a technical perspective it might actually be simpler to go ahead and create one device that covers 65Mhz rather than two devices; one that covers 60Mhz and another 65Mhz - since it is essentially just one contiguous band with no gaps and the addition of the extra narrow band is almost trivial from a technical perspective. I think there are definitely valid reasons behind the observations I made with respect to the iPhone 5.

Some general notes/observations: S4GRU said: "So the AT&T edition of the phone is actually a better fit for providers like CricKet, MetroPCS and US Cellular...if not for the glaring omission of those carriers’ 3G network technologies (and VoLTE)." What surprises me even more is that Verizon, with all the hoopla over their acquisition of additional AWS spectrum, didn't get AWS frequencies on the iPhone at all! With respect to CricKet, Metro, US Cell, etc... It should be mentioned that their traditional roaming partners are the CDMA carriers. One interesting thing to note (as I mentioned in another thread) is the potential for Sprint to extract some additional roaming revenue from Verizon iPhone users thanks to the inclusion of the SMR band (assuming Big Red doesn't disable it on its iPhones). That could be an interesting turn of the tables as far as these two carriers are concerned, especially in rural areas. Otherwise, so far, the introduction of CDMA band 10 appears to be mostly limited to Sprint-only phones. In that respect, the iPhone seems a bit unusual. Maybe when LTE band 26 really gets going we'll see more CDMA band 10 phones also. It's stooopid that AT&T didn't get the G-band included on their phones. I mean, geez, it's only 5Mhz more, can't be that hard to include. Crazy that there's a whole $100 price differential between the 16GB and 32GB variants. The consumer street cost difference of high-speed flash memory sized 16 and 32 Gs is like what nowadays, 5-10 bucks? Talk about some markup! Oh, wait, I forgot, there's a symbol of a fruit on the back of the phone, so it must be worth it! Plus, you get the pay extra for the omission of an SD-card slot... It's like Jeans with holes in them - you pay more for being stylish

Yeah, except that needing to add just 10Mhz to one side of the up and down links of the celluar band (to cover SMR) shouldn't make that much of a difference as far as antenna design is concerned, particularly since the band is under 1Ghz. Maybe band 26 will be enabled via a firmware update.

One interesting thing to note is that assuming Verizon doens't disable CDMA band class 10, Verizon's iPhones would be able to roam on Sprint's lower frequency band. That would be an interesting change, especially in rural areas. It also means additional potential roaming revenue for Sprint.

As you can read from the two posts above you, there's no support for LTE band class 26. Assuming the pre-release info. is correct then yes, it should be using the 9615.

Thanks, AJ. So it looks like all the other phones Sprint has released recently - support for CDMA on the old iDEN/SMR band, but no support for LTE on the SMR band yet. Unfortunate, since LTE band 26 shouldn't be that hard to implement if the phone already supports LTE on the 850 band. Maybe it's coming in the iPhone 5S ... It also looks like the "CDMA" phone will also support quadband GSM and UMTS. Hopefully Sprint has no notions of disabling that . They are usually pretty strict on on at least disabling GSM/UMTS850/1900 in the US and Canada.

Strongly doubt it as well. Sprint has a deep hatred of SIM cards. In one of their latest phones that needs one, they opted for a soldered-on SIM card. Crazy. I wish all CDMA carriers in the 'states would use SIM cards like the carriers in Asia do - but that's not how Verizon and Sprint roll (Sprint even less than Verizon).

Unfortunately, Hampton Roads is the largest metropolitan area on the East Coast where Sprint/Clear did not deploy 4G WiMax (except for a small initial network whose footprint did not grow). This means that unlike most major metro areas on the East Coast, data traffic isn't being offloaded onto 4G and correspondingly the 3G network is clogged. As S4GRU indicated, Sprint is supposed to start deploying 4G LTE in HR soon. Let's hope that all goes according to plan!

I wonder... with the 800Mhz band and the 850Mhz band being essentially one single band, does it really makes sense to provide two sperate figures for each, particularly since the "extension" of the cellular band to include the SMR band is only 10Mhz? Seems kind of silly that for CDMA operating under ESMR the FCC just doesn't go ahead and count it all as one single band. I can see back in the days when iDEN, with its guard bands and everything that you'd want to separate the two bands, but if you're gonna be deploying the same technology in ESMR as in the cellular band, the FCC should give Sprint a break. That might also convince other carriers to include Sprint's band on their phones and Sprint could generate some roaming revenue from that.

I wouldn't be jumping for joy just yet becuase a. Sprint seems to be somewhat behind in other cities with respect to deployment so it may very well be that they will be behind in VB too. b. note that upon initial launch, according to the map above, there will only be 7 sites active in Virginia Beach (and this is for a very spread out city with nearly half a million residents). So, even when it is launched, don't expect a whole lot of coverage, at least not initially.