It's common knowledge at this point that Sprint is having trouble keeping up with the other carriers. It held the number three spot for years, but that now belongs to T-Mobile. Now the smallest of the big four, Sprint is happy for any win it can get. Today that comes in the form of a report from Ookla that shows Sprint's LTE speeds have increased more than other carriers.

According to Sprint, its LTE speeds have increased by an average of 28% over the last seven months. During the same period, T-Mobile's speeds were only up 18%. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T were actually down 8% and 7%, respectively. This report says nothing about the actual speeds in most markets, but Sprint notes that it has the fastest LTE (according to Ookla testing) in 15 cities like Denver, Indianapolis, and Seattle.

Sprint chalks its speed increases up to the use of HPUE, which extends Sprint's 2.5GHz coverage by 30%. That's the spectrum Sprint acquired from Clearwire years back. It's good for open space, but not great at getting through obstacles. Sprint says it's looking ahead to rolling out gigabit-class LTE using this spectrum. I guess we'll have to wait and see if Sprint can manage that.

Source: Sprint