The GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) says there are now 180 operators in 70 countries which are deploying, trialing or evaluating LTE.
However, such impressive figures mask the fact that most carriers will stick with tests or small scale 'hotzone' roll-outs for several years.
Several cellcos are playing down the first mover advantage of early adopters like Verizon and TeliaSonera, claiming these roll-outs will generate PR profile rather than real commercial results, at least in the first year or so.
T-Mobile, as at the 3G stage, is content to enhance its current platform until it can gain the optimum pricing and spectrum position for LTE - this is seen in the US and Europe.
And Japan's KDDI said this week that it will not switch on LTE until 2012, even though arch-rival NTT DoCoMo has already gone live (KDDI does have some 4G activity via its UQ Wimax joint venture).
In an interview with Mobile World Live, KDDI president Tadashi Onodera said the cellco has selected its LTE vendors already, though will not announce them yet. He played down any threat from DoCoMo, since the larger cellco only currently supports datacards and dongles, which are also available on UQ.
When KDDI does go live with LTE, it hopes to differentiate itself with flat rate pricing, if it can see a profit model - it was the world's first cellco to offer flat rate mobile data plans.