New mobile technologies will provide fast, ubiquitous mobile access, and new competitors to the traditional cellular and fixed telecom operators will emerge. There is little disagreement about those two assertions.

"We feel that, in two years, anything you can do today, you'll be able to do on a mobile basis," Sprint's Cannistra said.

Beyond that, however, the long-term future of mobile technology is unclear. One area of murkiness is how the two technologies -- 3G and wireless broadband -- will co-exist. Many, including Cannistra, believe that the cellular data service now called 3G and its successors will be available primarily for cell phones, smart phones and other mobile devices. That service will be used for applications such as downloading media, video conferencing and other applications that don't focus on heavy use of enterprise data. Wireless broadband such as mobile WiMax will be used by laptops for more data-centric applications. .

"I think we'll see stratification by device," Cannistra said. "It also will be application-dependent."

Sprint's gamble is that enterprises and consumers will prefer to buy both types of mobile broadband service from a single operator. He acknowledges, though, that all manner of new service providers will emerge that have the potential to compete directly with cellular carriers such as Sprint.