Verizon Wireless chose Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson to provide the infrastructure for its roll out of Long Term Evolution networks in America. The announcement was made today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Verizon Wireless plans to upgrade its wireless network to high-speed fourth-generation LTE (Long Term Evolution) services. Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, and Siemens joint venture MSN plan to build an IP network that will allow the LTE to supply faster multimedia services.

Verizon, a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Britain's Vodafone Group, said it will initially use its 700 MHz spectrum for the buildout. Verizon is the largest operator that plans to upgrade to LTE after Japan's NTT DoCoMo which did it last year.

The two, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson, were picked because they offered good pricing and terms and could hang with Verizon's tough LTE 2010 deadline, said the company’s CTO Dick Lynch.

"These particular two vendors gave us the confidence that they could be ready by our very early date," Lynch said in an interview at the Mobile World Congress.

The company executive also said Starent Networks was picked as its packet core vendor.

Verizon Wireless is currently testing the 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) service and intends to launch the service in 2010. The company said that the 4G LTE in the field trials showed it can download rates of 50 to 60 megabits per second. The tests are being carried out in Minneapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and Northern New Jersey and also in Budapest, Dusseldorf, and Madrid in Europe.