Europe had its 3GSM World Congress in February to showcase cutting edge wireless networking advances with its dominant TDMA (define) standard.

Now, it's CTIA Wireless 2004 conference's turn in Atlanta to showcase how the United States and other global players are pushing 3G (define) networking with the competing CDMA (define) standard -- and tackling the interoperability with different wireless standards.

Although mobile entertainment device advances are expected to steal much of the spotlight during the event that runs Monday through Wednesday, developers will be in the limelight too. Look for CDMA technology, including the CDMA 1xEV-DO data networking protocol, to be a primary focus of many announcements at the show, participants said.

Verizon Wireless (Quote, Chart), currently the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., is kicking off the news flow with an expansion announcement regarding its 3G data service called BroadbandAccess, which is built on CDMA 1xEVDO technology.

The service, which went national in its rollout in January after a launch in Washington, D.C. and San Diego, already boasts data transmission speeds of between 300 to 500 kilobits per second, with bursts of up to 2 megabits per second.

In addition to speed, the company said the service is ideal for downloading complex files, with the ability to download a 1MB email attachment in less than 20 seconds.

Verizon claims GPRS (define) (which is the standard used by T-Mobile) would take nearly seven minutes to download the same file, and that the EDGE (define) standard, which is built on the competing GSM standard, would take about a minute and a half for the same 1MB file download. However, in some deployments, the faster version of the GSM standard has been hitting up to 384 kilobits per second.

But Cingular Wireless, which won the bidding to acquire AT&T Wireless (Quote, Chart) (and deploys the EDGE standard in its wireless data network), is expected to ramp up its 3G network speed. Indeed, it has no choice. AT&T Wireless is committed to rolling out 3G in four U.S. markets by year-end and faces a $6 billion contractual penalty from its investor NTT DoCoMo (Quote, Chart) if it does not.