US Cellular to ready LTE network in partnership with King Street

North American rural operator US Cellular has announced that it will launch its LTE network by the end of the year in conjunction with King Street Wireless.

The operator, ranked sixth in the US with 1.97 per cent market share according to Informa statistics, said that the service would initially cover selected cities such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine, North Carolina, Texas and Oklahoma, reaching some 25 per cent of its customers.

“With 4G LTE, our customers will have faster connections to the people, information and entertainment, that enhance their lives and help them stay organized,” said Mary N. Dillon, president and chief executive of US Cellular, in a statement.

Limited end user devices is a point of pressure on all operators at the moment and while US Cellular said that it would introduce a portfolio of LTE enabled devices, “during the first phase of its 4G LTE deployment”, it did not go into specifics. The company also said that more details concerning the roll out would be announced at a later date.

MetroPCS was, in September 2010,  the first to commercially launch an LTE network in the US, while Verizon Wireless launched LTE on 5 December 2010. Rival AT&T meanwhile, plans to bring LTE to market later in 2011.