HAWAII—Sprint will launch sub-$500 5G phones next year and is looking at adding new names to its portfolio of device makers, Sprint VP of Product Engineering Ryan Sullivan said here at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Tech Summit.

Sprint's stuck in a bit of a "sliding doors" future situation right now. With its merger with T-Mobile stuck in the courts, it can't clearly say that it's going forward as an independent carrier or as part of the "new T-Mobile." But Sullivan still has plans to bring down prices and welcome new manufacturers into his portfolio.

"We will launch 5G phones in [the $300-$500] price range this year," Sullivan said.

So who's providing them? Sullivan wouldn't give any specific names, but the words "Nokia," "Motorola," and even "Xiaomi" came up in the conversation.

"We meet with HMD at every trade show. We're always talking about the Nokia portfolio devices. I've been working with Xiaomi since back when Hugo Barra was on product for them. We know all of these guys; we talk to all of these guys. It's all about finding the right timing and the right value proposition," he said.

Qualcomm's pre-packaged Snapdragon 865 and 765 modules are looking to make developing 5G phones cheaper and easier, as I reported yesterday, and Sprint is working to pre-certify both of them, Sullivan said. While that won't entirely let phone makers avoid carrier certification, it'll make the process more streamlined, he said.

"We could see new entrants into the portfolio. We could see new brands. We have one [phone] with OnePlus and could see more next year. And the other thing that could happen is you could see the traditional OEMs that are only serving our prepaid base, you could start to see them make their way back into the postpaid portfolio because of things like modules," Sullivan said.

Spreading Spectrum

Sprint has stuck with the nine 5G markets it announced earlier this year, but it's been expanding coverage in those cities—it now covers 16 million people—and it's been expanding spectrum usage, too.

Sprint owns 160-190MHz of prime mid-band spectrum in much of the country, but it's only using 120MHz. Even that's up from when its 5G network started; in some cities such as New York, it was using 60MHz for 4G and only 40MHz for 5G. That's up to 60/60 in all of its nine markets, Sullivan said, offering improved 5G speeds. It's also moved uploads to 5G, improving upload speeds.

So what about the other 40-70MHz? That could double Sprint's 5G speeds from what we're seeing now. The problem is hardware availability, Sullivan said.

"We're working with our network manufacturers on when they can actually produce a massive MIMO radio head upgrade that can actually support more than 60MHz. So it is a limitation," he said. "Ultimately, getting to 100MHz or more on the NR [5G] side is our goal."

T-Mobile-Proofing the Lineup

T-Mobile's new 5G phones are Sprint-compatible, and it's going to work the other way around, too. Every 5G phone Sprint launches in 2020 will be compatible with T-Mobile's low-band FDD 5G network, Sullivan said. That's not just a merger move.

"We want to make sure these devices are future-proof for 5G roaming down the road and things like that. T-Mobile happens to be...one of our largest roaming partners domestically!"

Keep an eye on that word "roaming," because it's also an explanation for how Sprint and T-Mobile could make their networks available to each others' customers very quickly if they do merge. The "first order of business" after the merger will be to combine the networks, but that will require some physical work at some cell sites. But Sprint and T-Mobile subscribers could get free use of the two networks while they come together, switching to whichever one is strongest.

"There are things that can be done. You can look at roaming, or a 'roam as home' type scenario that could be put in place," he said.

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