Verizon Wireless To Extend EV-DO Networks
Verizon Wireless has announced that on Sept. 27, it will launch EV-DO service in 11 new markets around the USA. EV-DO service is the 3G data only flavor of CDMA wireless technology, on which VZW currently provides service through laptop PCMCIA cards for $80/mo. VZW will add Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Kansas City (Kan/Mo), LA, Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Milwaukee, NYC, and Philadelphia. Prior launches covered San Diego, Las Vegas, and D.C. The EV-DO technology provides real world Wide Area data rates of 400-700Kbps depending on the link budget. In Korea with their small cell layouts, they get the higher end of that range, while VZW achieves the lower end - still quite fast. So far, no mobile phone handsets have been sold in the US for EV-DO, and it has been exclusively targeted at the laptop market. We believe now, as we have for quite some time, that wide area wireless technologies pose a significant threat to the paid hotspot market, and to municipal WiFi networks which we believe will have spottier coverage, smaller footprints, billing and roaming complications, and interference issues. Where once the discussion was "will WiFi kill 3G?", perhaps the discussion should be "will 3G kill public WiFi?" Once we get off of this ridiculous $80 price point, Wide Area technologies will dominate.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: 3g
