2013 will be the year when Sprint’s (S) LTE network becomes truly nationwide. The Verge reports that Sprint has started flipping on its LTE network in parts of New York, Washington DC and San Francisco, three major markets that hadn’t yet been graced with the carrier’s LTE services. Even though Sprint hasn’t made any official announcements about providing LTE in these three markets, a spokesperson told The Verge that the “deployment is just beginning” and that “rather than deploy a site, test the equipment and then turn it off until we launch, we are leaving the sites on and customers are welcome to us the Sprint 4G LTE network wherever they find it.” So if you’re in a neighborhood in New York, DC, or San Francisco where you can get Sprint LTE, it seems the carrier is leaving it up for you to use indefinitely.

Prior to joining BGR as News Editor, Brad Reed spent five years covering the wireless industry for Network World. His first smartphone was a BlackBerry but he has since become a loyal Android user.