It turned out exactly how network operators dreamed it would.

Network operators bet billions—and more than two decades of their time and energy—to roll out new, faster networks that would entice consumers with once-unimaginable digital products and services such as online office applications, digital photography, music and movies on-demand. Electronics vendors, seizing the new networking opportunity, would flood the gadget sphere with a new generation of all-digital networked devices. Televisions, radios and portable players would all attach gracefully to these freshly installed broadband systems.

And lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened. The iPod, iTunes, CinemaNow, MySpace and high definition (HD) television are not only real, they are the drivers in today’s blazing hot consumer electronics marketplace. Just ask Best Buy, where profits are up 18% in the first quarter due mostly to sales in next-generation flat-panel HDTVs, and Circuit City, where earnings skidded 11% at the end of last year mostly because they could not sell these contemporary sets.

Now all is not perfect for the operator. Growth breeds competition. Many of today’s freshest gadgets will actually pinch the network operator. Apple Inc. computers and products threaten to reduce the need for many lucrative services that could be provided by network operators. Photo kiosks pull formerly network-stored photos and memorabilia out of operator control. Consumer-installed wireless networks aim to replace the network entirely. And some inventive consumers are bringing the YouTube vibe to networking; they’re sharing network access amongst themselves as another form of social commerce.

But these are just some bumps in the road to the mostly rosy networking future. Here are the five gadgets or services that should make the network operators’ coming days giddy ones:

1. Google Apps

The telecom industry should send the Google triumvirate of Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page flowers to honor the ultimate gift they have bestowed on the network
operating community: Google Apps. (www.google.com/a/)

The search giant has just come to market with an application service provider (ASP) spin on basic office software. Called Google Apps, it costs $50 per user, per year and provides word processing, spreadsheets, calendar functions, basic telephony (from telecom provider Avaya) and other office functions such as a Web-based application service. Just find any old PC, turn it on, connect to the Web and poof … You’re doing everything from making documents to setting appointments. Google Apps is powerful, powerful stuff.

In my testing, Google Apps is a strong collaborative tool that competes effectively with Microsoft Office software for basic functions. But you’ll need to stick with Bill Gates if you do a lot of heavy Excel work or Outlook integration. Yet at $50 per user, per year, the question becomes just how badly do you need those fancy services? Microsoft’s new Vista operating system and Office 2007 package can cost up to $1100 per seat, exclusive of hardware. And remember, Google hosts its Apps product on its servers so users don’t need Microsoft’s pricey server and other back-end products to stay connected.

But Google Apps has one major limitation that is like honey for the operator: no Web access. That means no office files, no calendar, no nothing. If you are offline, you are out of business.

Considering the serious traction Google Apps is showing in the market—Chicago-based Prudential Preferred Properties, for example, is rolling over its several hundred
employees to Google Apps—could there be any other tool that will drive the type of pervasive, 24/7 demand for network access that operators have long dreamed about? I doubt it.

2. Online data backup

It’s no secret digital cameras are coin of the realm in the consumer electronics universe. IDC, the Framingham, Mass.-based research company, predicts 30 million of them will be sold in 2007. The upshot of all this digital shooting is that most consumers now have substantial amounts of digital photographs and other content sitting unprotected on their computers. Ten Gigabytes of photos and other memorabilia stored per home is not unusual, in my experience.

That amount of irreplaceable content is driving a whole new generation of online content backup services. These tools are easy to use and automate the process of backing up important images, music, movies and files by compressing and feeding them to distant servers via the Web for safekeeping.

Aggressive start-ups to watch here include Mozy (mozy.com), i-Drive (idrive.com) and Carbonite (carbonite.com). With established ISPs—Earthlink came to market with a backup product called Weblife—the expectation is that other heavy Web hitters such as Google and Yahoo! will also get into the remote storage business.

Yet there is a problem—and a need—here: Online backup services are painfully slow. They are directly limited by the feeble uploading rates found in most broadband network products. Some backups I have tested can easily take several days. One took more than a week.

And considering that the last thing a network operator wants to do is stand between a grieving family and their memories, there will almost certainly be fresh demand for networks that are faster, both upstream and down.

3. Digital picture frames

If there is a cloud on the digital photography horizon, it is that the increase in sales of cameras is slowing. Although 30 million digital cameras were sold in 2007, that’s only a few more than the 29.6 million sold in 2006, according to IDC.

Now camera vendors are scrambling to find products to take up the digital camera slack. So imaging companies are betting big that they can sell a whole new wave of peripherals to photo-loving consumers. Of the many new products I have seen and tested, digital picture frames are by far the most relevant to network operators.

Digital picture frames are actually purpose-built displays meant for digital still images. The sweet part for the network operator is that better digital frames come with robust Internet connections. Units I like, such as the Kodak Easyshare Digital Picture frame and the Ceiva, can connect to a user’s personal image content found on the Web.

Properly enabled, a digital picture frame provides fresh connectivity options for network operators. Just about anybody can install a network-enabled frame and then display, literally, terabytes of their favorite digital pictures and other related content.
What proud grandmother wouldn’t love that?

4. Wi-Fi-enabled music players

While most of the digital music buzz these days goes to satellite radio, iTunes and maybe the iPod, the real news from a network perspective is the Wi-Fi-enabled music player. These devices offer consumers a real-world, network-centric, one-of-a-kind music service. They combine local storage in a portable device, similar to an iPod, with Wi-Fi connectivity to cache and manipulate content locally on a hotspot-by-hotspot basis. No ubiquitous Internet connection needed.

One system from a company called MusicGremlin determines a customer’s preference for music and then places that content on the device wirelessly using existing hotspots for download. In most cases, the user is not aware that this is being done. It sounds spooky, but it works. MusicGremlin is a terrific way to drive rich content traffic over North America’s cutthroat, multi-operator network environment.

With similar Wi-Fi music products on the market from SanDisk and Microsoft (the Sensa Connect and Zune both have Wi-Fi capability), the expectation is that wirelessly connected portable devices will be a growth area in the gadget world because every single device maker is pushing hard for a piece of the Apple iPod market.

5. Wireless cameras

Here’s the big sleeper in the gadget sphere: Digital cameras are becoming their own consumer ecosystems separate from PCs and telephones. Cameras now have separate direct-to-printer functionality and come in wireless-Web-enabled modes. Already, Wi-Fi-enabled cameras are the staple in professional photography. And the camera industry is betting that connectivity will become commonplace with consumers as well.

The trend started last year with the Kodak EasyShare-One, which used a Wi-Fi chip in the camera to connect to the Web with no hard wires. Now other vendors, including Canon and Nikon, are experimenting with wireless networking in some better units.

The Wi-Fi camera has the potential to connect image-hungry consumers directly with their media storage and manipulation tools. It can also potentially create a second network-enabled portable device in addition to the use's cell phone.

Initially, sales have been soft in digital cameras. But my bet is this won’t last, considering that market penetration of digital cameras among Americans, particularly families, is on par with TVs and video disc players. The coming wave of WiMax deployments will bring connectivity essentially everywhere. It’s only a matter of time before consumers simply expect the cameras in their pockets to be connected to the Web.

Think of the network traffic in such a scenario.

Jonathan Blum is a contributing writer at Fortune Small Business and also a freelance business writer. His syndicated radio program “Strange New World” runs in 25 markets and his industry tech news blog, http://www.blumsday.com, is read by more than 100 media outlets across print, broadcast and the Web.