The excitement hangover from the recent launch of the iPhone 3G is breathing much-needed new life into the sluggish mobile data business in the United States, according to a new research report.

In the report released on Thursday, research firm SNL Kagan upped its mobile data projections in the wake of the frenzy generated by the iPhone and other new smart phone models.

The firm now expects mobile data revenue in the U.S., which has lagged both Europe and Asia, to increase by a compound annual growth rate of 16 percent from $24 billion in 2007 to $100 billion in 2017. By comparison, the total wireless service revenue will grow by just 5 percent for the same period, the report said.

The firm expects data subscribers to grow at a 5.8 percent clip to $249.5 million by 2017, while total wireless subscribers will grow at just a 2.9 percent clip over the same period.

Price pressures on mobile voice, along with rapidly approaching mobile market saturation, and slowing service revenue growth are transforming mobile data from an immature secondary service to the primary driver of revenue growth, the report said.

“Right now the visible top line growth outlook in wireless is relatively modest, with declining sub gains and so much pressure on voice revenue countering the surge in data,” SNL Kagan analysts John Fletcher and Sharon Armbrust said in the report.

“But we think the open-endedness of wireless data options, especially related to location sensitive and personalized mobile commerce and advertising opportunities, could give wireless a second wind in the not too distant future,” they concluded.

To date, with the exception of SMS and MMS, mobile data, which includes services such as mobile video/TV, mobile Internet, music, and e-mail among others, has not spurred robust demand in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Mobile data generated about 20 percent of total worldwide mobile revenues in the first quarter 2008, according to a recent report from Informa Telecoms & Media.

At least part of that grow could come from cannibalized voice service. SMS and MMS, both voice substitutes, were responsible for more than 70 percent of the $49 billion mobile data generated in the quarter.