The Verizon trials in San Diego and Washington, D.C., are primarily for business users willing to spend $80 a month for the service, which can be accessed through a notebook equipped with a network card, Bhavnani said. Verizon plans to have network-ready cellular phones available by the end of the year.
Despite the billions of dollars invested by the carriers, the success of 3G networks is not guaranteed. Among the competitive threats is new technology for building wireless metropolitan-area networks (MAN).
WiMAX, for example, is an industry consortium building technology specifications for the broadband wireless standard IEEE 802.16. WiMAX hopes its specifications will encourage vendors to develop low-cost components for wireless MANs built around 802.16.
An 802.16 antenna can, theoretically, provide high-speed service 30 times faster than 3G to users within a 30-mile radius, making it a potential 3G killer in cities, Bhavnani said.
"I see WiMAX as a big threat to 3G," Bhavnani said. "It's really going to be a disruptive technology."
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