DETROIT Communications industry sources say AT&T Wireless, the nations third largest wireless carrier, has chosen Detroit as only one of four major cities in the country to become a metropolitan hot spot, enabling Detroit residents to watch streaming video in real-time on their wireless phones and wireless-enabled laptops. The official announcement will be made Tuesday.

The sources said this new technology will roll out in Detroit sometime next week. It is the same 3G technology that has been used for several years in Europe and Asia. Other U.S. cities getting 3G service include San Francisco, Seattle and Phoenix.

The company will offer the data service at a fixed all-you-can-use rate of about $25 a month to consumers and $80 a month to corporate customers, one of the sources said.

Cingular Wireless has agreed to acquire AT&T Wireless for $41 billion in a deal expected to close in October, making it the biggest cell phone operator.
The network upgrade is designed to replace AT&T Wireless’s older network, which was largely used for digital voice calling, and will pit the company against U.S. mobile leader Verizon Wireless.

AT&T Wireless will initially offer two phone models by Nokia and Motorola Inc., respectively, as well as a data card, one source told Reuters.

While analysts estimate that only about 7 percent of people now use their phones to surf the Web, some believe that the first companies to offer higher speeds will benefit at the expense of rivals.

Verizon Wireless is leading the pack so far with plans to sell high-speed data in the top U.S. markets by the end of this year and across the entire country by the end of next year. It already sells the service in two U.S. cities.

AT&T Wireless has said that its W-CDMA tests show that the technology can support Internet data at speeds of about 200,000 bits per second to 300,000 bits per second.

That is about twice to almost three times as fast as AT&T Wireless’ fastest speeds today and about four times as fast as dial-up links most people get at home today using phone lines.

AT&T Wireless has to roll out high-speed, or 3G, by the end of this year to satisfy an agreement with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, which has a stake of about 16 percent in the company.