U.S. Cellular rolling out LTE to 30 more markets

U.S. Cellular (NYSE:USM) and its spectrum auction bidding partner King Street Wireless are introducing LTE in more than 30 markets next week and intend to expand LTE coverage to more than half of U.S. Cellular's customers by the start of the end-of-year holiday season.

The Nov. 5 rollout covers select cities in Iowa, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Oklahoma and includes some of Chicago-based U.S. Cellular's leading markets in Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia, the company said. A follow-up wave of LTE launches will include Rockford, Ill., Medford, Ore., Yakima, Wash. and Knoxville, Tenn.

The operator has said it intends to complete its LTE buildout completed in three years. Its 2012 coverage target is 15.4 million POPs.

U.S. Cellular offers several LTE-enabled smartphones, including the Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy Metrix and the Samsung Galaxy Note II, as well as data devices including the Huawei UML397 4G LTE USB wireless modem and Samsung SCH-LC11 Mobile Hotspot.

King Street Wireless, headquartered in Alexandria, Va., holds 700 MHz wireless spectrum in 27 states and is partnering on LTE with U.S. Cellular in several of the carrier's markets. Both companies are members of the Interoperability Alliance, which is pushing the FCC to mandate LTE interoperability in the Lower 700 MHz band.

For more:
- see this release

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