Verizon is planning a press event to kick off the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, highlighting its emerging LTE network, and possibly revealing some of its first LTE-compatible phones.

The invitation-only event will take place in Las Vegas on January 6, the first day of the coming year’s CES. Following an hour of presentations by senior management, Verizon plans to host some demonstrations. It doesn’t seem prudent to hold a press conference just to show off the LTE data modems out now, so we’re cautiously optimistic that the company could be planning to use the event to debut its LTE lineup, including a few smartphones.

What can we expect from the revelations? The HTC Incredible HD is the most likely to make an appearance, especially considering how it’s been spotted displaying a 4G connectivity icon. Motorola’s Olympus is supposedly coming to Verizon with LTE support, dubbed the Etna. We’ve been hearing that the Etna should be blazingly fast, with either a dual-core processor or just one running at an elevated clock speed. Samsung’s Galaxy S2 has also been the subject of rumors, pointing at it to be an LTE model.

The timing of Verzion’s long-anticipated iPhone launch and the debut of its first LTE phones are starting to look like they could sync up, causing a good deal of speculation that Verizon is hoping to one-up AT&T with an LTE-enabled iPhone. Without anything solid to go on, though, we’ll believe that one when we see it.