The Boy Genius is reporting that Research In Motion is already hard at work on an LTE BlackBerry device. RIM wants to have its first devices ready by the time that major carrier LTE deployments begin, possibly as early as sometime in late 2009. In order to prepare, RIM has apparently assembled a special team to work on the project.
The move appears to be motivated by lessons the company learned with its 3G devices. RIM came to the table very late in the game (this year with the BlackBerry Bold unless you want to quibble and count the BlackBerry 8707v which came out in 2006 through Vodafone) and caught a fair amount of customer flack over the late move. It likely cost it some customers.
A number of carriers have already indicated that they plan to deploy LTE in the next couple of years, including Bell and Telus in Canada, Alltel, T-Mobile and Verizon.