• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, June 2, 2019

Even as Sprint looks to get governmental approval for its merger with T-Mobile, the carrier is pushing ahead with its 5G rollout.

Sprint just launched its 5G wireless network in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Kansas City and promises to add Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. in coming weeks.

The service is available in certain areas of those cities. For example, the coverage is from downtown Kansas City to Overland Park, Kansas, where Sprint is headquartered.

To use the service, a person needs a new LG V50 ThinQ Android phone (around $1,100) or an HTC 5G Hub ($600), which could be used at home to connect up to 20 devices.

Verizon and AT&T both are pushing ahead with their 5G services, which will be rolled out both for a new generation of mobile phones and for in-home networks.

The market reality is that most people won’t have 5G-capable phones for some time and widespread coverage areas will also take some time to get ramped up.

However, Sprint is at least showing that the world of 5G is becoming real.

The new speeds, with low latency, will be a game-changer.