AT&T, Nokia May Team Up On A New Phone For CES 2012

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It never fails to amaze me…we’re still waiting on some of the biggest Black Friday shopping deals to get announced and here we are, instead, hearing all about stuff that we might just see out at the 2012 CES show this January. And this particular chunk of news looks like a nice destabilizing element in the mobile phone field: a big announcement from the folks at AT&T and Nokia.

The current word suggests that AT&T and Nokia may be working on a Windows Phone together, specifically in the Lumia lineup. But what’s lurking behind that is the report that Nokia is not only set to be working on a Windows Phone, that they’re set to announce at the 2012 CES show, but that they may well offer said Lumia with 4G LTE connectivity.

Just what’s going to go into said phone is as yet unclear–some are suggesting that it might be a mildly tweaked Lumia 800, or possibly even a whole new Lumia altogether–but it definitely looks to be going to AT&T and AT&T alone thus far. Some word exists that says Verizon may want in on this particular deal, but considering that Verizon hasn’t exactly had a real big presence so far vis-a-vis Windows Phone models (especially as compared to AT&T’s efforts), this seems a bit unlikely.

Plus, there’s also some word that Windows Phone Tango, the version between Mango and Apollo, is set to launch in early 2012 as well, along with support for LTE, which would pretty much provide the backbone of the item in question.

The only question that remains is, will this get announced? Naturally, we’re going to have to wait for CES 2012 proper to get that particular question answered, but taking all these components together–the backbone, the network, the companies involved–suggests that this has a fair chance of coming to pass.

So what do you guys think here? Figure that we’ll see an AT&T / Nokia co-production make an appearance at the big show this January? Or will this be another bit of early word that doesn’t quite pan out? Either way, would you like to see it happen? No matter what you think about this one, we welcome it down in the comments section below!