Conceivably pushed by T-Mobile’s incessant disdain of the 3G iPhone 4 on both AT&T and Verizon in its most recent Mac vs. Windows copycat ad, AT&T has finally been pushed off the 4G schneid by announcing its own “4G” phone, the Android HTC Inspire. It’ll go on sale Feb. 13, three days after Verizon starts selling the 3G iPhone 4. But don’t perplex this 4G phone, or the imminent Motorola Atrix, or this AT&T and T-Mobile “4G” capability, with 4G-enabled handsets to come on AT&T’s 4G LTE network, due to launch this summer, and Verizon’s new 4G LTE network.
Inspire and Atrix are designed to activate not on LTE (Long Term Evolution) but on the so-called HSPA-Plus network, a souped-up edition of the existing 3G technology which “are delivered when HSPA+ technology is combined with enhanced backhaul…4G speeds will be accessible in limited areas with availability increasing with ongoing backhaul deployment,” the same caveat-laden boosted technology which T-Mobile is selling as 4G. In fact, Inspire is the first of 20 HSPA-Plus handsets AT&T plans on rolling out this year. LTE, nonetheless, both Verizon’s version and AT&T’s coming version, is based on a whole different technology and built for ever-increasing speeds and capabilities.
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