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NEW ORLEANS–As expected, the first day of CTIA 2012 was inundated with the release of new phones ranging from companies like Kyocerato HTC.
Now that the trade show is settling into its second day, however, most of the buzz heard around town came from carriers. Don’t get us wrong; new handset announcements pop up arbitrarily, no matter what day it is. But for today, it seemed to be all about the networks and not the devices.
Cricket Wireless
CNET’s Jessica Dolcourt made her way to Cricket’s booth and reported that it plans on releasing a slew of devices between July and October.
Although no new products were unveiled during CTIA, it’s safe to say that its upcoming handsets will probably feature the music subscription portal, Muve Music, which was prominently displayed in its booth and featured in many of its most recent devices.
In addition to that, changes in data and rate plans may also be in the works for Cricket users.
Sprint
Aside from announcing an official date to its 4G LTE Tri-Fi Hotspot and HTC Evo 4G LTE (both are coming out on May 18), Sprint held a press meeting today.
During the event, Sprint execs said they were waving goodbye to its Nextel iDEN network. Nearly 2,000 of its cellular sites have been shut down already, and the entire network is slated to be eliminated completely by the second half of next year.
The carrier also revealed that it will be rolling out a client called the Sprint connection optimizer, which will help phones pinpont Wi-Fi networks and hopefully, reduce data traffic.
Clearwire
The CEO of Clearwire, Erik Prusch, told CNET’s Roger Cheng that due to a number of international countries operating under the same LTE technology, the possibility that Clearwire customers on TDD-LTE can jump from one international network to another may be less far-fetched than previously thought.
Furthermore, he said that come the middle of next year, Clearwire will launch its LTE network on 5,000 cellular sites, and will have its first LTE handsets rolling out early next year.
Stay tuned for tomorrow, when surely even more mobile news and reports will be rolling out. And remember to check back with CNET for all the latest stories from CTIA 2012.
