Sprint today announced the "Sprint Magic Box," a small plug-and-play device that the carrier said will "dramatically improve" LTE data services and connections for any Sprint customers in its range. The indoor consumer device is built to be placed near a window, and is free for qualifying customers, with no installation, labor, or rental costs attached to its use.
The Magic Box doesn't require a router or Wi-Fi to use -- Sprint also mentioned that it doesn't interfere with established Wi-Fi networks -- and it automatically connects to the nearest Sprint cell site to guide users through installation. Once it's up and running, Sprint said that users will see a better data experience while streaming videos and surfing online, with up to 200 percent increases in download and upload speeds.
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The carrier also said that the Magic Box will be additionally beneficial in cities, as one device will boost the densification of Sprint's network for any Sprint user nearby.
So why did we name it Sprint Magic Box? Because the product is so simple, it just plugs in and works like magic to create a better experience by virtually eliminating hard-to-reach indoor areas. Within minutes customers see an average increase of 200% in download and upload speeds. The early feedback from thousands of customers who’ve been using Sprint Magic Box has been tremendous, and we’re excited for more customers to benefit from this amazing new innovation.
One Magic Box has more than enough coverage to provide faster speeds for any average-sized home or business. According to Sprint, this means the device can cover an indoor area of around 30,000 square feet, and reaches up to 100 meters of outdoor coverage, with up to 64 simultaneous user connections sustainable on one Magic Box.
Users interested can fill out a request form to see if they qualify for the Magic Box, which can be found on Sprint's website. The form asks for a Sprint number and description of how users heard about the offer, among the usual name and email requirements.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Must hold a lot of magic.
I still have at AT&T microcell. That box is the size of a modem. Sprint's box is the size of a VCR - which looks great in a window. :rolleyes:
Rocky: "... Again??
I wonder if these implement some odd tower-based hack. One problem with mobile wireless is you constantly need to adjust/range your signal. With a fixed receiver you can eliminate a lot of that.
At a guess, it sounds like a pair of cell radios. One connects to the tower, one offers service for local stations. Since they know this box is going to sit stationary, they can use certain techniques to improve the link quality between it and the upstream tower.I would love to learn more about the call routing and handoff protocols. Again, at a guess, they're probably implemented like normal LTE handoff with a data backhaul. I don't think that has been done with an LTE data backhaul before, but it's not implausible.