AT&T: no LTE smartphone until late 2011

Not exactly a huge surprise here considering that the carrier is still just getting its LTE network off the ground, but AT&T has now confirmed that it won't be offering any LTE-capable smartphones until late this year (LTE data cards will apparently come sometime before that). Put another way, however, that also confirms that AT&T will be offering at least one LTE smartphone before year's end. That word comes from AT&T's senior vice president for mobility and consumer markets, Pete Ritcher, who also continued to talk up the company's HSPA+ network, noting that it has been working to get the most out of it as it waited for LTE handsets to mature, and that it will let customers "fall back to faster speeds than our competitors" when they do eventually make the jump to LTE.