On track to meet earlier predictions for this year, the U.S. wireless data market grew 5 percent quarter-over-quarter and 22 percent over last year at the same time to exceed $12.5 billion in mobile data service revenues in Q1 2010.

According to a new report from according to the latest data from Chetan Sharma, as data traffic continues to increase across all networks, wireless providers are recognizing that the smartphone is not where the profits will end.

Sharma's data around how deeply voice subsidizes data is grim. But he predicts that it will only last through 2013, at which point things will steady and carriers will have to deal with a decline in overall ARPU, according to a New York Times article this week.

"Obviously ARPU isn't the only metric that carriers pay attention to, and selling data by the megabyte isn't the only option available to carriers. For example, texts are a low-data, high-dollar and high-margin service, a trifecta that leads to profits without overburdening the network. Carriers are hoping to find other data services (GigaOM Pro sub req'd) that offer these characteristics," the Times reported. "That's why the promise of machine-to-machine communications is so important to the likes of AT&T (News - Alert) and Verizon."

Sharma said that "given the slow postpaid growth in, operators are fiercely competing in prepaid, enterprise, connected devices and M2M segments."

In addition, the United States has become "ground zero" for mobile broadband consumption and data traffic management evolution. While it lags Japan and Korea in 3G penetration by a distance, due to higher penetration of smartphones and datacards, the consumption is much higher than its Asian counterparts, Sharma said.