My wife, who works for an authorized verizon retailer, forwarded me an e-mail from the purchasing director which indicated they have been told the Friday launch is off and that no new date or reason for the change was given. As for LTE I have had full bars a d just ran a speed test and got 20.46 mbps dl and 6.01 mbps ul. Western, MA/ Hartford, CT area apparently not affected by the LTE issues at least not yet.