While Alltel isn’t precisely the biggest fish in the carrier pond, its decision to use LTE for its upcoming 4G mobile broadband network further cements LTE’s status as the dominant 4G tech. It’s the third carrier in the US after Verizon and AT&T to go for LTE (Sprint is going the WiMax route, but we can assume T-Mobile will go LTE as well.) Like Verizon, Alltel’s current network is CDMA, so it’ll have to perform some behind-the-curtains magic to compose everything flow smoothly once its post-2009 rollout begins, since LTE is a GSM technology. (If none of that made sense, here’s a handy guide to mobile mumbo-jumbo.) [Electronista]

Original post by matt buchanan