As an aside in its announcement of 11 new LTE markets, AT&T mentioned something else interesting: it now expects to have its LTE rollout "largely complete by the end of 2013," a sentiment echoed by company exec John Stankey at a conference today. That's the most specific guidance AT&T has given for when it'll be done with its LTE deployment, which also happens to be the same year that it plans on kicking off an even faster LTE-Advanced network in some markets.

The 2013 timeline matches up with both Verizon's and Sprint's plans for LTE completion — though Sprint's starting with a marked disadvantage, obviously, since it doesn't yet have a single LTE market turned on. Still a big question mark, though, is T-Mobile USA — for the moment, it's neither being purchased nor partnered with for a proper 4G deployment, though the aggressive strategies by the other three nationals are undoubtedly going to put some serious pressure on T-Mobile throughout 2012 to figure out a way to bring LTE into the fold.