Nothing says the holiday is over like a juicy rumor, and rumors of a possible LTE Galaxy S III variant on T-Mobile is among the juiciest rumors we can think of. According to the governing body that handles Bluetooth requirements for devices, the Samsung SGH-T999L is a real device and could be headed to T-Mobile. It’s very preliminary at this point, but at least a few sites are speculating the “L” could stand for “LTE.”
As it stands now, the Galaxy S III model is sold as the SGH-T999, minus the L so it’s likely a new-ish model, possibly with some added features. T-Mobile is already kicking around LTE on a few towers in certain cities that shall remain nameless, so I wouldn’t be completely surprised if they picked up a new model early next year. It wouldn’t unheard of for an enhanced model to follow the release of the original as the HTC One X and HTC One X+ just showed on AT&T.
Still, I’m a little skeptical that we can positively call the “L” as “LTE” without a little more evidence, but it certainly was my first thought when I caught the news story. Current Galaxy S III owners shouldn’t jump to any conclusions just yet, especially regarding the notion that with this release, your device is obsolete. Our best response is to wait for the the SGH-T999L to show up at the FCC sooner rather than later and offer some more insight into exactly what the “L” means and if anything new is under the hood.
Proceed with caution.