nection is always available to any other end point in the network. Packet switching is of great interest to consumers and carriers in that is supports provisioning of new services such as flexible billing methods enabling pay-per-bit, pay-per-session, flat rate, asymmetric bandwidth, and others. As you can see, the variety of carrier services, their global coverage (or lack of it), and the raw capabilities of each solution will vary greatly, and each technology continues to evolve and "leapfrog" its competition. This bloom of competing technologies actually benefits consumers and carriers alike by enforcing a basic Darwinian theory: survival of the fittest, or in this case, survival of the fastest, most reliable, most extensible and-ultimately-least expensive protocols and solutions. Which technology will ultimately "win" is a guess at best and individual technology strengths ensure that there will be even more options in the years to come. In theory, 3G is a wireless broadband connection to your mobile phone, opening up a wealth of data-rich services on the move, including (but certainly not limited to) video calls-so you can actually see who you're calling instead of just hearing them. 3G service coverage is still limited to large metropolitan areas in the US, whereas in Japan and Europe 3G coverage is nearly ubiquitous. In those markets with reliable 3G coverage, there has been a steady rise in the usage of premium wireless services, and carriers are seeing a noteworthy rise in their revenues as users begin to enjoy the value and benefits of premium services. In the US, competing CDMA and GSM solutions have slowed 3G rollouts significantly. The competition has been fierce, and shows every sign of continuing for years to come. Even so, there has been significant progress in US-based mobile solutions. Mobile Videoconferencing and Interactive Multimedia On the CDMA side, Verizon Wireless offered 3G EV-DO services at the end of 2004 to only 32 cities-including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta- co