Is 4G enough to end the high-end tablet war for iPad?

The over-$500 tablet war was, for all intents and purposes, over once the iPad 2 came out with a front- and rear-facing camera. It was the missing feature that kept some people from buying the original iPad and pushed sales of the sequel to a higher level than many thought possible. Still, there were competitors lingering with hopes of stronger reviews, more appropriately-sized screens, and most importantly a faster network.

The last part may be changing if rumors of the iPad 3’s imminent announcement on March 7th are true. Here are the features that are being discussed”

• 2048×1536 Retina Display
• Quad-Core Apple A6 “System-on-a-Chip”
• 4G LTE Networking

While a retina display is impressive and the faster processor is a nice addition, it’s the network speeds that will help to push more users and businesses to abandon thoughts of anything other than iPad for high-end tablet purchases. Speed is everything, and while the WiFi and 3G features on the iPad 2 are pretty fast, there are faster competitors. With a true 4G LTE, many locations across the country will find that the iPad 3 is the fastest tablet available.

Rumors are like (insert your favorite over-abundance analogy) when it comes to Apple releases. If half of the rumors were true, we would already have an iPhone 5, a $300 iPad “Kindle Fire Killer”, and Steve Jobs would really have faked his death to move to a base on the far side of the moon before December 21.

Still, the prospect of a 4G iPad has many businesses thinking.

“I’d put one in every salesperson’s hand,” said Kyle Browning of Kansas City Kia. “The only thing holding us back is the lack of responsiveness the iPad 2 and other devices have with complex websites like ours.”

It won’t just be Apple and businesses driving a 4G iPad’s success. The mobile ISPs are hopping on any opportunity they can to tout their 4G services and nothing is sexier in mobile technology than a lightning-fast Apple product.

We have less than a month to see if these rumors pan out, but this one has a sense of truth to it in ways that others have not. Apple is too smart to rush things but they also do not wait too long. Like Goldilocks and wizards in LotR, they like everything to be just right.