One Verizon Wireless customer with a new iPhone 5 who lives northwest of Richmond, Va. that he was getting LTE data download speeds of up 22.3Mbps -- and upload speeds of 11.1Mbps on Sunday.

"I ... was surprised to see those speeds in this area," said "Keirtt" on forums.imore.com. "Literally, I could throw a stone and hit rural Virginia, and yet I have great LTE."

It's too soon to judge whether there will be an LTE network crunch from the iPhone 5. Already, , with many more on their way to customers. But there don't seem to be any major problems so far with LTE network support from the three major U.S. carriers.

"It's definitely a lot faster on LTE," Bryan Moore, lives in mostly rural Mt. Sidney, Va., said in a telephone interview. "It downloads things faster and uploads faster than before." Moore, a Verizon customer who bought a new iPhone 5 on Friday, said he's noticed the speed while using Twitter and Facebook and when streaming music over Pandora.

At his home, Moore said his Verizon network coverage constantly shifts from LTE to 3G and the related EDGE data network. When that happens, he's noticed a slight hiccup of less than a second when viewing a music video. Otherwise, it hasn't caused any real problems.