OK, will the real downlink speed offered by Telia Company 's Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network please stand up?

The Scandinavian operator is the first carrier in the world to deploy an LTE network, in Stockholm and Oslo. TeliaSonera said when it launched the networks in December that users could expect to experience data network speeds between 20 Mbit/s and 80 Mbit/s. (See TeliaSonera First to Go Live With LTE.)

Last week, however, Swedish analysts Northstream came through with an initial note that the LTE speeds were somewhat less than promised:

"The throughput measurements were sort of a disappointment as we, after countless tests, of which many were performed outdoors to eliminate any problems related to indoor coverage, never exceeded 12 Mbps in downlink." (See LTE Watch: Testing Times.)

The analysts, however, backtracked on the earlier measurements this Monday, with a new blog, saying:

"We have continued our live testing of LTE over the weekend and today, and we have tried it on buses and in cars and in other places in the city, indoor and outdoor, and we’re happy to say that we experience data rates above 25 Mbps more often... and we’ve reached 45 Mpbs downlink on some occasions."

SwissQual Holding AG , meanwhile, issued a release on its initial tests on the network on Tuesday. "Downlink data throughputs up to 47 Mbps and [Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)] latency as low as 20 ms were recorded," the network measurement firm said. "This is approximately 5 times better than the performance typically seen in 3G HSPA+ networks." (See SwissQual Tests TS's LTE.)The Scandinavian results should be of interest to American readers, since they seem to suggest a network much faster than that which will be offered by Verizon Wireless . The U.S. CDMA operator, along with LTE equipment supplier Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), has so far said that downlink speeds on LTE should be 5 to 12 Mbit/s. (See AlcaLu Will Do LTE in Vegas.) — Dan Jones, Site Editor, Unstrung