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Bell Labs has made prototype chips that would allow Blast to operate at speeds of 19.2 megabits per second over a 3G wireless network. Currently the highest speed those networks can offer is 2.5 megabits per second. Ran Yan, vice president for wireless research at Bell Labs, said that the prototype chips were intended for use in a cellphone or wireless hand-held computer.

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Dr. Foschini declined to estimate the ultimate transmission speeds that could be achieved with Blast. One restraint on speed is the intense data processing it requires. With current technology, higher speeds would demand chips that are too large and too power-hungry for hand-held devices.

Dr. Yan said that the first systems offered by Lucent Technologies, the lab's parent company, would probably use just four transmitting antennas. Because wireless data systems operate with high frequencies and the transmitting antennas must be separated by only half a wavelength, he said, it will not be hard to squeeze more antennas into even the most compact mobile phones or palmtop organizers.

Because of economic problems, the wireless industry has been slow to adopt even 3G networks in the United States. So Blast is unlikely to become available soon. But unlike 3G, Blast does not require the construction of new networks. It only needs relatively inexpensive equipment, like new base stations, to be installed on current systems.

"It's a minimal upgrade," Dr. Yan said. "But it will allow service providers to get 300 to 400 percent increases in data rates in first deployments, and much higher quality."

While Lucent is already making network base stations for wireless service providers that can be converted to use Blast, Dr. Lucky anticipates that those companies will wait for the military to pioneer use of the system. He said there were concerns that the complexity of Blast might create unforeseen problems when used by large numbers of people on congested networks.

Assuming that problems do not develop there, however, Dr. Lucky said, the system could completely alter all systems that depend on radio waves. "I had this idea that spectrum was all used up,'' he said. "Now, with new technologies like Blast, maybe spectrum is infinite."