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If the rumors are true, real, honest-to-god 4G in the United States could be on the way sometime in the next 7 to 12 months. FierceWireless reports on word from AT&T's annual meeting with analysts that it will be "firing up" new "LTE Advanced" service across its network in the second half of 2013.

What is LTE Advanced? Well, it's a lot like 4G LTE, only more, um, advanced.

See, in the old days of mobile broadband -- like, all the way back in 2011 -- carriers started marketing services they called 4G, but in the real world, they really only offered speeds one-tenth or one-twentieth those of the actual 4G standard, which is meant to deliver download speeds in the range of 100Mbps. That means we were suddenly able to download full songs out of the air in mere seconds on these new 4G services. … Read more

AT&T has expanded its LTE network to six more markets.

The company announced today that three U.S. markets -- Albuquerque, N.M., Reading, Penn., and Salt Lake City -- are now able to access its LTE network. Three markets in Puerto Rico -- Guayama, San German-Cabo Rojo, and Yauco -- also now have AT&T's LTE network.

With the new addition, AT&T's network now spans 109 markets and reaches more than 150 million people, the company told CNET in an e-mailed statement.

AT&T has been rapidly rolling out its LTE … Read more

What the iPad 4 loses in style, it gains in performance versus the Mini.

As I wrote last week, the Mini's style, size, and weight make it hard to put down. But after upgrading from the third-generation iPad 4G/LTE model to the fourth-generation iPad with 4G/LTE and after a week of pretty constant use, I found the 4's performance compelling.

It feels fast and benchmarks fast. In most -- but not all -- cases, Web pages pop, apps load, and graphics render faster than the Mini.

And the 4's performance is supported by my own … Read more

You might not think that adding cellular LTE onto an iPad Mini would be all that exciting. After all, the larger Retina Display iPad and iPhone 5 are both LTE devices. However, the Mini has something unique going for it in the world of Apple devices: it's the smallest contract-free iOS LTE gadget short of getting an unlocked iPhone.

I got the opportunity to try out a black Verizon LTE Mini and see how the experience differed from using the Wi-Fi only version. There really shouldn't be many surprises, right? Still, there are some use cases I realized were pretty compelling, and might even merit the idea that an LTE iPad Mini is more of an ideal purchase than the larger LTE iPad ever was.… Read more

Microsoft might have a new Xbox for the 2013 holiday season.

A new report from Bloomberg suggests that Microsoft might be readying the successor to the Xbox 360 for the 2013 holiday season. We here at CNET have been speculating the company might do the big unveiling at E3 2013 next summer and then set up a release shortly after. Some of the rumored features of the next Xbox -- aside from an obvious bump in performance -- are a Blu-ray drive and a more precise version of Kinect.

Industry site Telecoms.com has discovered some information about the iPhone 5'… Read more

Apple will be the judge of whether a network's 4G LTE offering is worthy of supporting the iPhone 5, not the other way around.

That's the apparent revelation in a report today from industry site Telecoms.com. A spokesperson from Swisscom confirmed Apple's 4G approval protocol to the site this week, claiming that "Apple only enables 4G access after testing their device on an operator's live network."

In other words, Apple has managed to put 4G behind its fabled walled garden in a way, wrestling a significant measure of control away from the network carriers. Once Apple has determined that a 4G network has met its internal performance standards, it pushes out a software update enabling the step-up from 3G (or -- gulp -- something else) to LTE on that network.… Read more

U.S. Cellular this week quietly introduced another Android smartphone this week with the budget-friendly Samsung Galaxy Axiom.

Appearing on the carrier's Web site without even a press release, the Axiom runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and delivers a 4-inch 480x800-pixel WVGA display, a 5-megapixel rear camera, and front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera. Additional details include a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 2,100mAh battery, NFC, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 4G LTE connectivity.

Astute readers will recognize that the Galaxy Axiom closely resembles the recently announced Galaxy S3 Mini. Save for its slightly faster processor and longer-lasting battery, it'… Read more

In the best example of things being taken, then given, only to be then taken away again, it was recently discovered that the massively popular LG Nexus 4 houses an LTE modem that works... sort of.

The revelation began over at iFixit, which posted a teardown of the Nexus 4 last week. Front images of the motherboard showed a Qualcomm WTR1605L Seven-Band 4G LTE chip. That's right, a 4G LTE chip.

When asked about this, LG crushed all fantastical dreams of a firmware-enabled LTE upgrade to the ground and told TechRadar that despite the given chipset, the device isn'… Read more

You can buy the coolest and most advanced smartphone out there. But if you can't get a wireless signal, it's not worth much to you.

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I offer some advice to a reader about picking a wireless service provider based on which one offers the best coverage. I also explain to another reader why, even though the Verizon iPhone 5 is unlocked, it won't work on any other 4G LTE networks.

Dear Maggie, I've loved my iPhone ever since I got it in June last year, and absolutely … Read more