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AT&T Goes Euro with 4G Plans

Scott Moritz

AT&T (T Quote) says it will join the European camp for its future wireless upgrades.

The top wireless telco has picked Long Term Evolution, or LTE network technology for its fourth generation system upgrades.

The move is good news for network infrastructure suppliers Ericsson (ERIC Quote), Alcatel-Lucent (ALU Quote), Nokia Siemens -- a joint venture between Nokia (NOK Quote) and Siemens (SI Quote) -- Motorola (MOT Quote) and Nortel (NT Quote).

LTE, which is known in some circles as 4GSM, is built on Europe's Global System for Mobile standard and is being developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project based in France.

The news comes less than three months after No.2 player Verizon Wireless opted for LTE as its upgrade path. With AT&T and Verizon Wireless - co-owned by Verizon (VZ Quote) and Vodafone (VOD Quote) - now on the same path, the trend isn't a particularly positive one for other 4G suppliers.

AT&T is the second major carrier to move further away from Qualcomm's (QCOM Quote) technology. And though Qualcomm expects to have some royalty and licensing opportunities in LTE, its own OFMDA, a 4G technology, has largely been snubbed by the big players.

Meanwhile, Sprint's (S Quote) floundering 4G WiMax effort, which is likely to packed off with Clearwire (CLWR Quote), seems to be headed no where at the moment.