We’ve heard of AT&T’s plans on adopting the LTE/4G services in 2011, but it seems Verizon has jumped the gun by stating that they plan on releasing this same technology in 2010. The news came via the MWC, where Verizon announced they have already begun testing their LTE service in parts of Minneapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and New Jersey. Better yet, they’ve apparently achieved speeds of 60Mbps; wirelessly. While these are peak speeds and not the average (which I’d assume to be much lower), Verizon is currently ahead of the game; AT&T won’t start rolling out testing until 2010, with a planned 2011 release.

Furthermore, what does this mean for the iPhone? The LTE technology will apparently play nice with GSM phones, such as the iPhone, and therefore the possibility of the iPhone running on Verizon may play out. Current iPhone’s cannot run on Verizon because of the differences in technology, being that Verizon works nice with CDMA phones; not GSM. However, if next gen iPhones are built with LTE chipsets, Verizon users may be able to finally use the Apple device. Of course, this is all speculation. If LTE chipsets are not built into next gen iPhones, this isn’t a possibility. The thought is comforting for Verizon users however.

Via the iPhone Blog