U.S. Cellular LTE Network Ready, High-Speed Devices Delayed

Coming off the heels of 4G World, U.S. Cellular has announced that its LTE network is now ready, though its first batch of 4G LTE-enabled devices won’t be available until the first quarter of 2012. 

Previously, the sixth-largest US carrier announced its plan to roll out LTE devices by November, yet it appears the carrier has experienced some setbacks, as the handsets are currently still in testing.

U.S. Cellular is partnering with King Street Wireless to offer LTE capability to its customers, with plans to first bring the high-speed connectivity to certain cities in Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine, North Carolina, Texas and Oklahoma. The carrier currently covers 26 states, and though it did not reveal all of the select cities to get the LTE network, Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Portland, Bangor and Greenville will be among the first. 

LTE Everywhere
The announcement comes as more carriers begin to expand their networks to include LTE coverage. Yesterday, AT&T launched its first two 4G LTE-equipped smartphones, the HTC Vivid and Samsung Galaxy S II “Skyrocket,” while spreading its LTE network to include Boston, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Indianapolis and Athens. While Verizon continues to unveil more high-speed phones, like the music-oriented HTC Rezound, regional carriers, such as C Spire, are working to transition to LTE by the year’s end. 

Sprint is switching from using WiMAX as its 4G standard to LTE, something that's going to be very expensive. This means that, for the first time ever, all the top U.S. carriers are going to have the same wireless standard. That doesn't mean users will be able to roam between all these networks, however.