Dallas - Prepaid carrier MetroPCS turned on 4G LTE wireless-data in San Francisco, extending its 4G footprint to its sixth market as part of a plan to further expand the its 4G network later this year and early next.

 The announcement came hours before Verizon Wireless' planned noon announcement in which the carrier will detail its plans to launch LTE. Verizon has said it will launch 4G LTE in 38 major metropolitan areas, covering more than 110 million people, before the end of the year. The carrier has also said users can expect downlink speeds of between 5Mbps and 12Mbps and upload speeds of between 2Mbps and 5Mbps.

MetroPCS's six LTE markets include Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Other markets coming on line later this year and early next include Atlanta, Boston, New York, and Sacramento, Calif., as well as Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Miami, Fla. The LTE network in those markets coexists with the carrier's CDMA 1x EV-DO Rev. 0 voice/data network.

In its 4G markets, MetroPCS offers the LTE-equipped Samsung Craft, available since the September launch of MetroPCS's first LTE market in Las Vegas.