With AT&T no longer being the only game in town for the iPhone in the U.S., the company has to have at least some shift in strategy. Part of this strategy appears to be that the carrier is planning the release of at least 12 new Android models before the end of this year, and they expect at least 20 4G devices to be launched before the end of 2011 as well.

The move toward Android for AT&T has started off a bit slowly, as the carrier was too busy selling other products; but now the demand from AT&T customers makes it necessary for the carrier to get deeper into selling Android powered devices. AT&T apparently has devices on tap for release by Motorola, HTC, and Samsung for starters, with other models to follow.

According to our sources, AT&T is not only planning to offer Android Smartphones, but tablet devices, as well.
Right now we are told that at least some of these will offer 4G technology in the form of LTE later this year, and HSPA+ which is already deployed to their entire network. Of course, in order to take advantage of HSPA+ you need a device that supports it; and in some cases it is possible to flash the firmware of a device to enable it, but that is much rarer.