In the title, I’ve listed off most of the cellular “standards” the US market has seen in the last five years and/or will likely see in the next three or four years. Now obviously, some of them directly replace others (i.e. CDMA vs. CDMA 1x RTT or EV-DO Rev’s A, B &C). However there still exist two distinctly different wireless technologies (and a third which is just on the horizon).

Today in one camp there are the current wireless leaders using CDMA-based technology, which is morphing into EV-DO: Verizon and Sprint-Nextel (and Alltel on a smaller scale). In the other camp is Cingular/AT&T Wireless with their GSM turning UMTS/HSDPA network. In a recent GigaOM blog post by Chetan Sharma, he describes this cluster and who is ahead now and what we’re likely to see in the future from both of them. While this is a good article and it will clear up many of your questions in general, Sharma doesn’t go into detail on T-Mobile’s plans or take into consideration the other possible advancement of “At-home services.”

T-Mobile, which has yet to really make a footprint in the US “3G” wireless space, is actually owned by one of the world’s largest and most successful 3G carriers abroad (Deutsche Telekom AG of Germany). This is giving T-Mobile a bit of an edge in innovation, if they are prepared to spend the money (which it appears they are fully capable of doing).

As we all know by now, Europe and Asia (even many “third-world” countries) have more advanced wireless networks than we do in the US. It’s no secret either that US carriers routinely fall short of customer’s expectations on service integrity (coverage), features and cost, but this might actually lead us somewhere. What T-Mobile is trying out in limited tests throughout the US, might be a viable technology to advance the wireless space and meet consumer expectations and demand.

In a BusinessWeek article from August 14th of this year, Olga Kharif explains their plans, as well as AT&T’s play in this space. Kharif also suggests that Verizon might be caught in a bind here, if its wireless joint-venture with Vodafone starts directly competing with its residential phone services. For more on these “at-home” services, you can read Kharif’s full article.

But we are sill left with a major problem. Instead of all of these companies working together on one major technology platform (pick one) and then building their respective services off of that, we are left with the ultimate mess as a direct result of this competition and our services suffer because of it. Don’t get me wrong, I am very excited about the possibilities which lie ahead for us as consumers, but seeing the GSM vs. CDMA fight of five years ago all over again is a bit frustrating. As with broadband, quality of service, features and cost all suffer because of this competition.