Uncovering the US LTE 'conspiracy'

[Commentary] The long-term evolution (LTE) club added a few members last week at Mobile World Congress with SK Telecom, Telstra, Telefonica and a handful of smaller operators announcing plans to roll out commercial LTE networks this year and next. At that pace, the “long-term” in LTE is quickly becoming a misnomer—or at least that’s what I've been foolishly led to believe. But according to a many of the European media I spoke with in Barcelona last week, LTE is just as long-term as its name implies and Verizon’s heralded early launch of a large-scale LTE network is a marketing myth. I'm not kidding here. I heard from several European colleagues—and even an American one—in the press and blogger corps that LTE is still at least a year or two away from ever seeing daylight in a live network and that what Verizon Wireless has deployed is not a “true” commercial LTE network but a limited trail at best. Further, and contrary to published launch dates, these doubters contend that the first LTE smartphones won't be available until 2012 or 2013.