Verizon Wireless said Tuesday that the next upgrade of its mobile phone service to CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A will enable it to offer VoIP calling. The new deployment of incremental hardware and software upgrades will be provided by Lucent Technologies.

Verizon and Lucent said they completed live, over-the-air EV-DO Rev. 1 calls last summer and since then have conducted live VoIP and video telephony calls utilizing the feature.

"EV-DO Rev. A enables users to receive data at speeds up to 3.1 Mbps and send data at speeds of up to 1.9 Mbps," the announcement read. "These increased forward and reverse link data speeds reduce data latency and will enable operators such as Verizon Wireless to deliver VoIP and other multimedia services."

Verizon said EV-DO Rev. A will help it introduce new services like messaging and enhanced push-to-talk features. Lucent, which is in the midst of a merger with Alcatel, deployed initial EV-DO infrastructure for Verizon Wireless. Financial terms of the new deployment were not disclosed.