Verizon Wireless’ EVDO has won itself many fans, and those fans will have a lot to cheer about later this summer or early fall, when the company rolls out an upgrade to its wireless data network.
Verizon’s key supplier Nortel Networks today announced that it will be supplying gear to Verizon and has finished trials successfully. In comparison to today’s EVDO technology, the Rev A technology is able provide peak data rates of up to 3.1 Mbps on the forward link (information flowing from the cellular base station to the subscriber) and up to 1.8 Mbps on the reverse link (information flowing from the subscriber back to the cellular base station).
Though it is highly unlikely that we will all see those speeds, but they will be substantially higher than what we get today – 200 kbps in good areas of coverage. In this week’s podsession, Niall and I discuss the the impact of 3G, and other wireless access technologies. (You can download it here.)
I would disagree with the EVDO results you posted. My typical download speeds (directly on my phone in NYC) range from 500k to 800k, and thats in less than ideal coverage areas. My upload tends to be around 120k in the same areas. I look forward to EVDO revision A!
Would like to know how Green is getting that kind of speeds – I use Verizon EVDO constantly in NYC, NJ, Philadelphia and all points in between and I consistently get around 150-200k.
i have used evdo through verizon both on my pda, and a pcmcia card on my powerbook… both get roughly 600k. the laptop will occasionally see 900k under optimal conditions. this is primarly in the houston area… but have traveled to new orleans (even after katrina), and north texas and have gotten the same results. couldnt be happier with the service. looking forward to more.
I consistently get over 400k down most in places I travel near Charlotte, NC. One day I even sustained about a megabit (down) for about 5 mins on a large download. I have never seen that kind of speed since that day, however. 120k up is average for upstream here as well, in my experience. YMMV, though.
FYI, EV-DO Rev A requires upgrades on the client-side, as well. IOW, your current 1xEV-DO Rev 0 equipment will operate at the same speed it does now. New Rev A-compatible equipment will be required to get the higher speeds.
well i got 1.4megabit consistently for the past year ha
I put about 2 GB of throughput on my EV-DO each month and routinely get speeds around 500 kbps if not much more; I’m about 25 miles outside of Philadelphia and on the fringe of coverage. In fact, some recent speed tests of my tethered XV6700 topped out at 1 Mbps while an EVDO PC card with a PCMCIA to USB adapter on my UMPC hit around 750 kbps.
The real question: is it possible via a firmware upgrade to get the Rev. A speeds and compatiblity on the EVDO radios we already have?
I’ve been running the Sierra Wireless EV-DO Rev 0 card on Telecom New Zealand’s network for almost a year now, and it works pretty well.
Performance depends on where you are and how loaded the network is when you use it, but 4-600kbit/s is the norm. Quite often I hit 1Mbit/s or slightly above though, usually in Auckland CBD. Uploads are in the 120-130kbit/s range which isn’t bad but it’d be nice to improve on that.
In New Zealand, the EV-DO network runs in the 800MHz band which means good building penetration as well as reach. You can actually pick up a decent signal while sailing off the coast near Auckland.
The main issue with Rev 0 is the high-ish latency. Looks like Rev A will cut the 150ms roundtrip times by half, meaning it’ll be a fixed network alternative provided Telecom here doesn’t price the service exorbitantly high as usual.
I have Sprint EVDO and have to agree that the service rocks. I consistently see around 450kbps down and about 90-100kbps upstream. That’s certainly a far cry from my 8Mbps cable modem, but for a mobile connection that’s pretty nice! Something that you need to keep in mind is that in addition to signal quality, the amount of users on the tower you’re connecting to will also affect speeds. Most towers are fed by a single T1 line (1.54Mbps) so if there are other EVDO users or voice users your max possible speeds will decrease. In my experience, airports have the best EVDO service because they usually have 45Mbps backbones. In both the Atlanta and Toledo airports I was consistently seeing over 1Mbps speedtest results. EVDO rocks!
I wonder if they will ever offer resale?
Neal Saferstein
I’ve just completed a 7500 mile trek across the US and back, using my Verison EVDO service for my internet connection. We were able to connect consistantly with over 100k connections, and quite frequently hit the higher bandwidth zones near large cities such as Atlanta, Memphis, Dallas, Albequerque and Salt Lake City.
I’ve been told that service will be upgraded in all Verison service areas eventually, so eventually we will be get the 3 Mb speeds everywhere! That would ROCK!
The EV-DO Rev A infrastructure that Nortel is using to speed up the Verizon Wireless services is supplied to Nortel by a company called Airvana (www.airvana.com) Airvana’s stuff will also be part of the new Sprint-Nextel Rev A services. They’ve got an interesting White Paper on how Rev A will work for Mobile VoIP. Download at http://www.airvananet.com/files/EVDOGrowthand_Evolution.pdf
I’m a bit curious to know if latency will be affected by this change. Does anyone have any experience/info?
Does anyone know where there are pricing and throughput comparisons for Verizon, Sprint, Cingular, TMobile, etc broadband services?