According to BGR, RIM is already crackin’ away at an LTE device so that it’s ready for launch whenever LTE officially goes live.
For the sake of the folks out there who don’t spend their lives memorizing every last mobile industry acronym: LTE stands for “Long Term Evolution”, and is one of the standards set to make up the next generation of mobile network technologies. In other words, LTE (along with competing technology, WiMax) is 4G. Sprint is siding with WiMax, Verizon and AT&T are going with LTE.
With that in mind, RIM’s rumored work with an LTE handset should come as a surprise to no one. With RIM’s US presence made up predominately by AT&T and Verizon, both of whom are backing LTE, not having a suitable device ready ASAP would be a huge misstep. Hell, I’d be willing to wager that they’re working on at least two of them – one touchscreen (a la Storm), and one in the more traditional candybar form.