The four major U.S. wireless carriers this week plan to unveil technology to verify users that they say could replace passwords and codes sent by text to mobile phones.

AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. have collaborated on the initiative, dubbed ZenKey, for about two years. The group plans to demonstrate the technology at the Mobile World Conference, which starts Tuesday in Los Angeles.

The idea is for mobile carriers to use SIM card details, location data, phone account type and other characteristics to verify users, Johannes Jaskolski , general manager of the joint venture, the Mobile Authentication Taskforce, told WSJ Pro Cybersecurity in an interview at AT&T’s New Jersey campus.

Companies can use ZenKey in lieu of passwords, or as a second verification factor that is more secure than a text message, he said. Cybersecurity experts have warned that text-based authentication, although widely used, is vulnerable to schemes such as SIM swapping—or persuading a carrier to switch a user’s phone number to another SIM card—which allows fraudsters to intercept messages.

Jack Dorsey , Twitter Inc.’s chief executive, got caught up in such an attack in August when hackers took advantage of a mobile carrier weakness to hijack his Twitter account and post obscene messages.

End users won’t have to pay to use ZenKey and most companies that use the system likely won’t be charged for it, Mr. Jaskolski said. The coalition of four mobile carriers plans to charge companies that make use of additional features, such as being notified about a possible impostor, or obtaining a risk score that details how confident the carriers are of a person’s identity, he said.

The ZenKey technology is similar to single sign-on services developed by cybersecurity and technology companies including Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, said Dan Miller , lead analyst at Opus Research Inc. But ZenKey incorporates additional elements readily known to the telecommunications companies, such as details about an individual’s device. Smartphones are associated with unique device numbers that wireless carriers use to identify phones.

“There are attributes of their customers that can be used for strong authentication that other companies wouldn’t have,” Mr. Miller said. “Phone carriers know a lot about us.”

The initiative follows similar efforts in Europe and Asia, including one by South Korea-based SK Telecom Co.

One challenge, Mr. Miller said, will be persuading banks, retailers and others to sign up over other alternatives and integrate the technology with their own software.

Customers could eventually use ZenKey as an app they download to log onto a banking site or other account by pressing a button instead of entering a username and password.

Fidelity Investments Inc. has experimented with the technology, though a spokesman declined to say whether the company plans to adopt the service.

Bill O’Hern , AT&T’s chief security officer, said the company has tried an earlier version of the technology internally, letting field technicians, for example, sign into apps on their iPads and mobile devices.

Write to Adam Janofsky at adam.janofsky@wsj.com