AT&T confirms NYC LTE network will be officially live this month; holiday smartphone sales expected to soar

AT&T’s LTE network has been unofficially active in pockets of New York City for just about a week now — and now it’ll be officially live throughout NYC sometime this month. AT&T says it’ll also be flipping the switch in additional markets to cover some 70 million subscribers by the end of the year — we’ll let you know when we get the full list.

AT&T also says that it’s expecting to break its quarterly record of 6.1 million smartphones sold this quarter — the company’s already sold six million in just two months, with December’s holiday blitz left to go. A big part of the sales boost is the iPhone 4S: AT&T says sales of Apple’s latest handset remain strong, and that it’s seeing a large number of upgrades from people who’d been waiting for a new iPhone. We’ll see if that shiny new LTE network affects the mix at all in the coming year.