DALLAS -- Nokia Networks 's head of North America, Sue Spradley, says NSN is trialing and testing its Long Term Evolution (LTE) hardware in the labs of "a very large customer that happens to be here."

Did "here" mean Dallas, where AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) keeps its world headquarters?

Or did "here" mean "here in this room," where T-Mobile US Inc. 's VP of planning and finance, Dave Mayo, was in attendance?

Analyst guesses in the hallway after Spradley's speech were split right down the middle.

AT&T would be a surprise, to say the least. (See AT&T's LTE Suppliers.) T-Mobile seems more likely as the carrier is a big NSN wireless radio (and backhaul) customer, so another step in that relationship would be less of a surprise.

Either way, the statement was part of Spradley's effort to explain to a crowd of analysts why the fact that NSN is not getting phase one of Verizon Wireless 's LTE business "is not the end of the world." (See Ericsson Delivers Knockout Blow to NSN.) In her explanation, she played up Verizon's use NSN for its IP Mulitmedia Subsystem (IMS) deployment, more spoils from the Apertio acquisition. (See Nokia Siemens Snaps Up IMS Vendor.)

"We have figured out how to take it from a platform to converge wireline and wireless capability to an IMS core," Spradley says.

After noting that we're very early on in a long process of building LTE networks in North America, Spradley says she hasn't conceded the fight for North American LTE to Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC).

"We will be a leader in LTE in this market," she says.

— Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading