4G LTE Grows (Above & Below)4G LTE Grows (Above & Below)

The dog days of summer are becoming a time of sustained growth for 4G LTE coverage in the United States.

AT&T Inc. said Wednesday that it has added eight new markets and expanded coverage at five more. The new LTE towns are Greenville, Ala.; Troy, Ala.; Madera-Chowchilla, Calif.; Merced, Calif.; Vallejo-Vacaville, Calif.; New London County, Conn.; Sussex County, Del. and Columbia, Mo. (See AT&T LTE to Be 'Substantially Complete' by Summer 2014.)

Sprint Corp., meanwhile, is adding LTE coverage in one of the biggest metro areas in the U.S. The operator says that its new 4G LTE network and improved 3G CDMA service, via its Network Vision upgrade strategy, will be available in the Bronx and Brooklyn beginning on July 30. The operator says it will add more coverage in other areas in New York City "in the coming months."

Sprint is also following AT&T and T-Mobile US into the subway. Sprint says that users of its Sprint, Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile brands can expect to begin receiving coverage underground in 36 stations in midtown Manhattan and Chelsea in early 2014. The operator has signed up with subway Distributed Antenna System (DAS) network operator, Transit Wireless, to enable its service to eventually beam into all 277 stations in the New York system.

See how operator 4G LTE footprints stack up now:



— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile