Wireless carriers see the digital photo frame as a "third screen," beyond cellphones and PCs, into which they can plug 3G data cards.

In theory, a 3G card will help digital photo frames connect to the Internet, allowing consumers to download pictures directly from photo sharing sites. By leveraging the 3G-enabled digital photo frame, cellular carriers hope to finally crack the home market, where they haven't had much luck so far.

Marvell Technology Group, for one, said it is booked solid with meetings with carriers next week in Barcelona, Spain, specifically to discuss connected digital photo frames.

Carriers' requests for proposals (RFPs) and quotes (RFQs) have been circulating for awhile, said Kishore Manghnani, vice president for application processors, consumer and computing business group at Marvell.

Beyond chips that go inside mobile handsets, Marvell is now pushing a new application processor based on its Sheeva CPU core running up to 1.2 GHz. It was developed for the connected digital photo frame market.

While suppliers of connected digital photo frames are typically looking to Wi-Fi networks to enable connectivity, cellular operators are pursuing an opportunity of their own.

T-Mobile, for example, quietly launched in the United States late last year a 7-inch digital photo frame, called Cameo, with GPRS service on the T-Mobile network. The frame, priced at $100, costs $10 a month, allowing users to load images from MMS and e-mail, as well as from a memory card slot embedded in the device.

Vodafone in Germany and Orange in France are also looking into connecting cellular cards into digital photo frames, according to Harry Wang, senior analyst at Parks Associates. Verizon and AT&T are interested in an electronic device called a "home center" which can display digital photos, while connected to a fixed-line phone, he added.