Verizon Wireless took a big step over rival AT&T yesterday when CTO Dick Lynch announced at Mobile World Congress that the carrier is preparing to deploy its GSM-based 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network across 25-30 cities by the end of 2010:

It is on track. We're currently on phase four -- the final phase -- of the trials in Boston and Seattle and in 60 days they will be fully passed in terms of testing before we start the commercial infrastructure roll-out in a big way.

Based on the results of field testing over the past year or so, the roll out of LTE could bring max download rates of 50 to 60 Mbps to over 100 million people by the end of the year. AT&T has designs on its own LTE network as well, but it only has trials planned for this year, so it's pretty clear that Verizon is going to beat AT&T to the punch. Instead, AT&T will be focusing on an upgrade path that runs through HSPA 7.2.

So does this mean that WiMAX is on its last legs? Well, no... Not officially. Although, between Verizon and AT&T, it seems pretty clear that LTE is on track to be the 4G of choice in the U.S.