Ma Bell said Thursday that it has launched LTE markets in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area in Florida and in Durham, N.C. The carrier says it has now got LTE live in 28 markets.
By contrast, Verizon says it now has 196 markets running. The company added Cookeville, Tenn. to its list on Thursday and expanded service in Little Rock, Ark.; Rapid City, S.D.; Clarksville, Tenn. and San Antonio, Texas.
Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S), meanwhile, has said that it will have six major LTE cities up by the middle of this year.
To get a sense of where all this LTE is going, here's LR Mobile's map of 2012 LTE market additions and expansions, with the new towns and cities added. Verizon is in red, AT&T in blue and Sprint in yellow.
View Q1 2012: New LTE in the USA
For more Follow LTE's progress in the U.S. in 2012:
- Verizon LTE Gets Spoofed
- Sprint's iPhone Q4 Ouch!
- Sprint's 4G LTE Texan Triangle
- Verizon Plots 5 New LTE Markets
- New Year, New 4G: At a Glance
— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile
Maybe doesn't matter too much until the fabled iPad 3 LTE arrives?
Still Verizon has density on LTE for what, a year, two years, to come? If Apple does come out with LTE products this year why would choose another carrier?