I was curious about why the US has to get a downgrade in processors, and the reason was because LTE. So I started to look into it, and the European carriers' LTE coverage is no where near Verizon's coverage. Even AT&T looks good in comparison. Assuming Sprint meets their goals with their Network Vision, the 4G coverage in the US will be much stronger and a much more of a competition aspect than in Europe, so the international versions of phones can lack LTE support and not suffer.
If given the choice between a dual-core LTE device and a quad-core 3G only device, and everything else is equal, I'd be willing to bet that the average American would choose the DC LTE device over the quad core by a significant margin. I would also bet that if the GS3 were to sell without the LTE and have a quadcore against the HOX, and they were released on the same day, the HOX would win out, easily. Americans are coming to expect 4G service. If 4G was not that important, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T would not be tripping over themselves trying to build out their LTE networks.
At least that's how I see it from my computer room
