Between the efforts of the four major U.S. cellular carriers and Clearwire, mobile broadband in this country is undergoing a fundamental change. And while the pace of that change isn’t fast enough for some, we’re better off than we were at this time in 2005. Back then, Sprint was first lighting up EVDO in San Francisco, T-Mobile was still betting on Wi-Fi, Verizon’s EVDO rollout was half-done and AT&T (then known as Cingular) was just getting ready to start the 3G train rolling. Clearwire, meanwhile, was still just a baby; it turned two in October of that year.

So for wireless junkies, the past half-decade has indeed been a treat to watch, but with so much change underway, now is a good time to once again take stock of what’s on the horizon. One thing we can all but count on is for the next three years to bring more change than the last five did.

AT&T: The second-largest carrier currently offers HSPA speeds of 3.6 Mbps down nationwide, but began upgrading software at its cellular towers this past January for a 7.2 Mbps rollout this year. After that, AT&T could cheaply re-double speeds with HSPA+ technology as it waits to see if device makers and consumers are ready for LTE. The carrier is currently poised to begin a 4G rollout with LTE in 2011, which should boost speeds to the 5-12 Mbps range. John Stankey, president and CEO of AT&T Operations, recently told GigaOM that he doesn’t expect a large variety of LTE handsets — and the VoIP services to go along with them — to become available until 2014.

Verizon Wireless: The No. 1 carrier that led the EVDO revolution is also leading the LTE charge. Verizon expects to cover 100 million people with LTE before 2010 is out and to have its current 3G footprint blanketed with 4G by the close of 2013, taking download speeds to the 5-12 Mbps from today’s 1.4 Mbps. Look for phones that support LTE on Verizon by this time next year, although such handsets will only use 4G for data, according to Verizon CTO Dick Lynch.

Clearwire: Currently offering WiMAX in some three dozen cities, Clearwire advertises average mobile speeds of 3-6 Mbps. By the end of 2010, it expects to cover 120 million people, including those in most major cities, with 4G access. Details for 2011 and beyond are sketchy, but the company recently left open the slim possibility of transitioning to LTE from WiMAX technology at some point in the future. I’d expect Clearwire to still be using WiMAX for the next several years, however, as it tries to recoup its expenditures from the WiMAX buildout.

Sprint: With its EVDO rollout now complete, Sprint is looking ahead but in a different direction than AT&T and Verizon. Instead of LTE, Sprint has partnered with Clearwire (in which it owns a majority stake) to use 4G WiMAX. Currently covering 43 million potential customers, Sprint aims to boost that number to 120 million before the end of 2010. Sprint’s future is closely tied to that of Clearwire, so it should still be offering WiMAX through 2013, although it’s also likely the carrier begins to move some voice services to the 4G data network by then.

T-Mobile: The smallest major carrier was also the last to roll out 3G, but like the race between the tortoise and the hare, T-Mobile already offers some of the fastest 3.5G mobile broadband in the country. T-Mobile started a 3G rollout in September 2008, but is using 2010 to upgrade to HSPA+ capable of around 10 Mbps download speeds. More than 75 million people have access to this network and all of T-Mobile’s coverage area — around 185 million — will see it by end of year. Future plans don’t include WiMAX or LTE, since with the right infrastructure and software upgrades, HSPA+ can be expanded up to 84 Mbps with real-world speeds of roughly half that.

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China Telecom’s move to EVDO Rev. B will bring both multicarrier technology and end user speeds that are two to three times faster than EVDO Rev. A — Alcatel-Lucent in its announcement points to speeds of 6.2 Mbps for 2.5MHz and 9.3 Mbps for 3.75 MHz. Meanwhile, most of the world is already moving away from CDMA in favor of either LTE or WiMAX for 4G wireless networks. But with over 56 million China Telecom subscribers, Qualcomm’s CDMA royalty stream gains a new lease on life, much as Len Lauer, then Qualcomm’s COO, told Stacey at our Mobilize event last year.

There’s also the slimmest of hopes for Qualcomm here in the U.S.. Telecom Pragmatics thinks that Sprint or Verizon could possibly upgrade their Rev. A networks to Rev. B for transitional purposes, though both deny such efforts, saying they’re fully committed to WiMAX and LTE, respectively. One way or another, Lynette Luna of Fierce Wireless doesn’t think it’s time to write off Rev. B just yet:

“I think it may be sitting on the back burner as an option to fill in CDMA operators’ 4G holes down the line. I think HSPA/HSPA+ operators that are deploying LTE are doing the same thing with future iterations of HSPA. These technologies serve as a good fallback when LTE deployments don’t go exactly as planned, whether because of technology or economic reasons. The problem is you can’t predict when these fallback technologies will come to market.”

A fallback may be Qualcomm’s best bet, but with China Telecom, Qualcomm’s CDMA royalty train can continue down the tracks for a few years yet.

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Bottomline: Just because the device is available doesn’t mean you need to buy it. As Stacey pointed out earlier that the credit crunch can slow down the Clear rollout and the device well might not be useful in many places. You are better off going for a cheaper 3G-only card for now.

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….Nielsen’s research reveals that the cards are beginning to play an important role in home and personal Internet access, as well. In fact, 43 percent of mobile data card users report they most often use their data card at home, while 15 percent say they typically use the card at work. Additionally, one in five (21 percent) data card subscribers take advantage of ubiquitous access by heading outdoors and 9 percent use their card while commuting.

An easy explanation would be better price packages and higher speed tiers, thanks to newer 3G technologies. Of the nearly 1,300 mobile data card users Nielsen surveyed, more than 99 percent still kept their wired broadband service: 40 percent of card users also have cable broadband and 34 percent also have DSL in their home. That number can jump to 59 percent, giving wired carriers something to think about.

Maybe the wireless guys need to rethink their wireless broadband plans and bring them forward. For phone companies the prospect of being cannibalized by wireless data connections must be scarier than losing them to voice connections. No wonder they started to limit bandwidth transfers on their connections. (Photo courtesy: Novatel Wireless.)

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With the exception of many who worked in New York’s Silicon Alley, not many cared about the expensive, always-on connection. Being a broadband nerd of sorts, I couldn’t care less about the price tag; I couldn’t wait to pay more to get more bandwidth.

I am reminded of that moment — of that thrill — of experiencing the web without delays, thanks to the new iPhone and its ability to connect to the 3G network. I already can’t wait for AT&T to upgrade their network from HSDPA to HSPA to HSPA+ to LTE so we can get faster and faster broadband.

For now, the best we can get on the iPhone 3G is HSDPA, which has a theoretical download speed of between 400 and 700 Kbps, though Apple on it site says it’s going to be 2.4x the speed of EDGE – about 100 Kbps. Still, I am going to go out on the limb and mark July 11 down as a red-letter day for 3G wireless.

Don’t get me wrong — it isn’t the day 3G wireless was first introduced in the U.S. Neither is iPhone the first 3G phone. I have had 3G phones, USB and PC Card modems for a while now. It isn’t the first time I have used 3G broadband; I am on old hand at using EVDO to connect my laptop to the web, or at connecting my Nokia e61 to a 3G network whenever I am in Europe, or using the Nokia N95 to snap-and-share photos and videos via one of the life-streaming services.

Yet this is the first time that a 3G connection on a non-computer device actually feels like a broadband connection. “This device is a true game-changer. Why? The immediacy of the data at your fingertips is huge. Imagine, looking up anything, anywhere,” is how AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega told me in a chat earlier this year. In the U.S. especially, the iPhone is going to have a major impact, mostly because are a PC-centric society constantly search for web-like experiences. (So far, most of the carriers have made their money off 3G computer connections. I am wondering how the iPhone impacts (or not) 3G usage in Europe.)

I received the new iPhone 3G on Friday, and since then I have been tinkering around it — a lot. My first (and perhaps lasting) impression: The 3G speed is quite addictive and it doesn’t take long to slowly start switching your daily compute tasks to this device instead of reaching for your computer.

A lot of that is because the iPhone has a generous screen and is very easy to use, but more importantly it has a more than adequate browser, making it an ideal candidate for being a “cloud client.” All that was missing was a fast-enough connection that helped “off-source” some (or, in the case of others, many) tasks from their computers.

The briskness with which I can surf web pages means it has become easy to keep and eye on this and our other network blogs. The email shows up in the inbox as quickly as on my desktop. NetNewsWire’s iPhone App has already become my preferred way to read RSS. Its ability to sync with the desktop client over the web only adds to its utility. Facebook on the iPhone is almost infinitely more usable than its web counterpart. (John Markoff is marveling at the pocket-sized experience as well.)

Truphone’s new iPhone app makes it easy to place VoIP calls on the iPhone, thereby making it less necessary for me to fire up the old computer to call mom. It sure would be nice to see a Skype client for iPhone. I am sure that over a period of time other habits will form — including watching YouTube videos – which just got bearable, thanks to a faster connection.

More importantly, 3G has freed me up from thinking about the availability of a Wi-Fi connection. Of course, if everyone else gets into the same habit, as I suspect they will, this is going to put some stress on AT&T’s 3G Network.

Going back to the early days of broadband, the thrill of doing mundane web tasks faster and without tying up a phone line didn’t seem as great in the beginning, but acted as a spark for the broadband revolution. It wasn’t till Shawn Fanning unleashed Napster that broadband demand took off, eventually leading to innovations like Skype, YouTube & Facebook.

I think that from that perspective, the iPhone 3G is going to provide a similar spark for wireless broadband. Just like touch and big screens are becoming increasingly commonplace in high-end phones, over the next 12 months I wouldn’t be surprised to find mobile device makers focusing heavily on the Internet, all while waiting for the elusive killer app, which none has seen just yet. Despite the tight control of carriers on wireless spectrum, this could be the start of a new wireless wave.

http://www.youtube.com/v/FejunYTfDYg

Photo of iPhone & Safari courtesy of Apple.

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AT&T said today that over the next month it will deploy High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technology in the six remaining markets across its 3G footprint, leaving it able to deliver 1.4 Mbps down and 800 Kbps upstream speeds. This will be an improvement over HSDPA technology (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), which is slower.

HSUPA puts AT&T on near-equal footing with EVDO-based mobile broadband sellers Sprint and Verizon. And it’s not stopping there — the company also plans to graduate to HSPA+ and then to LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology to offer even higher speeds for mobile broadband.

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The SlingBox Personal Broadcaster extends a user’s LIVE Cable TV, Satellite TV or personal video recorder (PVR) experience to any of his or her connected personal devices. SlingBox delivers a complete personal TV experience to networked PCs, WiFi-enabled laptops and PDAs, and even video-enabled mobile phones. Any device. Any network. Anywhere in the world.

In other words the shows recorded on your TiVo in Palo Alto can be watched over the Internet, say in Tokyo. The data is streamed to you over a secure tunnel, and since it does not involve any downloading (only streaming), you cannot get into legal trouble. Remember the old ruling that said it was okay to share VHS tapes with nearest and dearest. Same logic applies here as well. Gizmodo has a better description, in english.

The idea is simple: hook up the little $200 box to your TiVo or your cable box and connect it to your home internet. Then, when you’re out and about, just pull up the client software on your PDA or laptop. SlingBox’s software will detect the quality and throughput of your connection and shoot you our a recompressed, digital stream of whatever analog signal you could be watching at home. It would even work on cellphones, they say, if the bandwidth were there (and it will be Real Soon Now).

“At its heart is software that detects the size of the handheld screen and the speed of the Internet link, then compresses the broadcast into suitably sized digital chunks. It works like a long-distance remote control,” founder Blake Krikorian told Forbes. Blake, in case you don’t know him, is a dude who worked at General Magic, back in the day.

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