Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S), AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) and others are expected to begin rolling out LTE Advanced network technology as soon as 2013. But what exactly does the upgrade to the LTE standard do? What features and functions will LTE Advanced deliver to users? Perhaps most importantly, LTE Advanced could boost users' upload and download speeds significantly, to 1 Gbps on the downlink and 500 Mbps on the uplink (though real-world speeds will likely be much slower). But installing LTE Advanced won't just involve flipping a switch. As Iyad Tarazi, vice president of network development and engineering for Sprint, explains, "The best way to describe LTE Advanced is to say it's a long roadmap of capabilities after you launch the first set." Click here for a FierceBroadbandWireless special report on the capabilities of LTE Advanced.
