3. 4G Will Make Your Home Connection Redundant

But tethering won't only happen on the road. Right now, we pay for cable or DSL Internet connectivity for home and 3G for mobile Web connectivity. 4G is supposed to be 10 times faster than 3G, with average throughput of anywhere from 3 to 10 Mbps (compared to 3G's 600 kbps-1.4 Mbps). That's nearly as fast as most home broadband connections and, for a lot of folks, reason enough to sever one suddenly redundant $40/month bill.

4. The Emergence of Telehealth

Remember this term: telehealth. Along with 4G networks, all manner of new sensors are coming to help monitor your body. Everything that a doctor needs you to come to the office to check will be able to be monitored remotely and transmitted via 4G to your doctor. Sensors can be built into stuff you already wear — glasses, belt buckles, watches, bras, jewelry — to send constant body signals to your doctor (or, more likely, some kind of medical computer). Such a system would not only monitor your ongoing condition but also anticipate and react to problems ("You've fallen and we're sending someone to help you up") — sort of a personal OnStar system.

5. Video Chatting

The big new feature of iPhone 4 is FaceTime, Apple's version of mobile video chatting. iPhone 4 users will be able to use it only on Wi-Fi to start, and the reason for that is obvious: the feature would quickly choke 3G networks. Not so 4G. Evo's already got a 1.3 MP front-facing camera but Sprint hasn't turned on video-chat capability yet and video chatting over 4G is now a reality. Besides video chatting, the killer app may be virtual-reality gaming, raising narcissistic self-absorption to new heights.

What other life-changing apps will 4G enable? Who knows? Verizon doesn't. That's why last fall the carrier created the 4G Venture Forum (4GVF), an incubation project to figure out exactly what kinds of "products and services that will harness" the faster 4G networks. Check back in a year from now to see what crop had sprung from the 4G seed we've planted today.

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