In particular, the carrier's wireless data revenue continued strong growth, increasing 53% to $3.9 billion from a year ago. Data revenue now makes up almost 30% of Verizon Wireless' service revenue compared to 24% in the year-earlier period. What are subscribers doing to drive up non-voice services?

In the second quarter, Verizon customers sent or received nearly 146 billion text messages and more than 2.5 billion picture/video messages. They downloaded 40 million music tracks and videos during the quarter, up from 36.5 million a year ago.

While text messages and picture messaging was up from the prior quarter, however, video and music downloads dropped from 48.6 million in the first quarter, and from 50 million in the fourth quarter of 2008.

What caused the dip in music and video downloads over the last six months was unclear. It could be a seasonal decline, or it could signal some people have tried the services and aren't going back for more. In any case, it's a pattern that Verizon hopes will not continue in coming quarters as it focuses on growing wireless data revenue.

New findings in the Pew Research Center's study on wireless Internet use show that text messaging is by far still the most popular non-voice service. More than two-thirds (65%) of cell users have ever sent text messages and 43% do so on the average day.

By comparison, only 14% have ever watched a mobile video (up from 10% in 2007), and only 3% do so regularly. The share of people who have played music at least via mobile phone increased from 17% to 21% in the last two years. So it's still an uphill battle for Verizon and other wireless carriers to convince most subscribers to use their phones for things other than talking and texting.

Overall, Verizon Wireless reported that second-quarter revenue grew 27.7% to $15.5 billion, and total customers increased to 87.7 million.

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