Verizon Wireless will announce a high-speed network expansion today that sets the stage for an ambitious multimedia content service launching Feb. 1, a source briefed on the plan told internetnews.com.

The nation's second-largest mobile carrier has been tight-lipped about the moves, which will be announced at a news conference at the Consumer Electronics Show this afternoon.

Verizon Wireless has been testing its 1xEV-DO network in close to 20 cities, according to the source. The third-generation network has the speed and capacity to deliver Verizon Wireless' new content offering.

For $15 more per month, subscribers will receive Web browsing and a package of games, entertainment, news, weather and sports programming from major media outlets. There will also likely be opportunities for additional premium content, from a particular television network, for example.

Three new phones are also expected to be introduced by Verizon Wireless' handset partners (including Samsung), with designs that lend themselves to displaying video content.

Ken Hyers, an analyst with In-Stat/MDR, said Verizon's initiative sounds aggressive, but makes sense given the growing appetite for content services and the growing rivalry with Cingular.

"Consumers seem to be willing to add on more and more fees just for an extraordinary number of services," Hyers said. "The typical bill is now $55 and [subscribers use] 700 minutes per month."

The company, a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone, was the nation's largest wireless carrier until the recent $41 billion merger of Cingular and AT&T wireless.

Now, amid a wave of consolidation, players are investing in network equipment to increase data speeds and bandwidth with an eye toward new services that boost customer loyalty and average revenue per user.

Earlier this week, Cingular and Lucent said they had achieved successful trials of their third-generation wireless network technology, with data transfer rates hitting "true" 3G speeds.

The companies completed their first High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) data calls on a 3G Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) during tests in the Atlanta market.

The system delivered data rates of more than 3 megabits per second (Mbps) and supported streaming video and downloads of high-resolution images and other large files, the companies claimed. HSDPA has theoretical peak data speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps.

Usual speed ranges on so-called 3G networks promise bandwidth in the range of 384 kilobits per second (Kbps) to 400 Kbps when a device is stationary or moving at pedestrian speed, about 128 Kbps in a car, and 2 Mbps in fixed applications.

Verizon's 1xEV-DO technology now boasts data transmission speeds of up to 300 kilobits per second, with bursts of up to two megabits per second. The service is undergoing a national rollout.

Reprinted from internetnews.com