"We expect that LTE will actually be in service somewhere here in the U.S. probably this time next year," Verizon CTO Dick Lynch declared this week. While I see the announcement has many people hot and bothered, the late 2009 launch will be small, serious deployment still won't be seen for several years, and remember we're still waiting on Verizon's promise of true network openness -- a promise made back in 2007. The announcement of Verizon's LTE plans comes as the Clearwire and Sprint plan to deploy a mobile WiMax network gains traction in the media.

In lab tests, LTE technology has been showing downstream speeds that exceed 100Mbps -- while moving. Original predictions for LTE had the technology not seeing serious deployment until 2010 and 2011. That's probably still a reasonable projection, given that even if this prediction by Verizon is accurate -- -- Verizon's first deployment won't be until late 2009 (usually code for mid-2010 in telecom) and likely rather small. That said, they will be quicker to migrate (from EVDO) than AT&T will be.

AT&T has declared that they plan to milk HSDPA and HSPA+ for a few years before migrating to the speedier 4G technology. AT&T’s Hank Kafka, VP of Architecture, recently proclaimed that HSPA had "plenty of runway left," and that serious LTE deployment was still three to five years off. AT&T boss Ralph de la Vega says AT&T already has 7.2Mbps HSDPA working in the labs, and will deploy 20Mbps HSPA release 7 sometime in 2009.

There's a lot of moving parts involved in getting LTE up and running, not least of which is unfinished standards and a lot of elbow grease. All in all, 2011 or later remain viable prediction dates for serious LTE availability.