What do you do when your competition has built out its 4G LTE network a full two years before yours is set to be ready? If you're AT&T, you just start calling your existing 3G network a 4G network. Problem solved!

Yes, Verizon is leaving AT&T in its dust with its speedy 4G LTE network, with AT&T's comparable network not set to be completed until the end of 2013. So rather than have to suffer through Verizon's 4G ads for all that time, AT&T has decided that its HSPA-plus network is close enough to count as 4G. Note to AT&T: it's not. But without a firm standard for the definition of 4G set by the International Telecommunications Union, AT&T can use the label on pretty much whatever it wants. Classy!

Via WSJ