Verizon Wireless is launching its high-speed (EV-DO) cellular service, branded BroadbandAccess, in Seattle and Portland today.
Verizon’s EV-DO service, now available in 37 cities, typically results in 300-500 kbps mobile connections. The CDMA-based EV-DO network can also carry an associated content service, called the V-CAST video services (another $15/month). It offers TV clips of news and regular programming, such as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
V-Cast developed mobile television content specifically for the mobile phone, called mobisodes. Other video content is available from providers such as CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, ESPN, FOX Sports, MarketWatch, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and others.
The service is actually divided into two segments:
- V CAST is a $15/month video service. Phone users can add it to their Verizon Wireless calling plan, (also available in New York and New Jersey). It includes unlimited access to a wide array of more than 300 daily updated video clips from news, sports, weather and entertainment content providers. It’s not a data only service, it’s a content service riding on EVDO. Raw, highspeed EV-DO is not available to phone users.
- BroadbandAccess is the $79/month, laptop-enabled EV-DO service available to mobile professionals and enterprise customers. It enables laptops to connect at broadband speeds.
Verizon Wireless is also introducing the Samsung SCH i730 Pocket PC today for large account customers, and on June 27, new plans that combine voice minutes, unlimited nights and weekends for voice calling and unlimited data access from a PDA, Smartphone or BlackBerry will be available. Consumers will be able to purchase the Samsung SCH-i730 on July 7 from any Verizon Wireless Communications store and online.
The Samsung i730 features EV-DO, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Windows Mobile 2003 SE (not Windows Mobile 5.0), 64MB of RAM, an SDIO card slot, Bluetooth and 802.11b WiFi.
David Pogue posts a video clip on the EV-DO service. Walt Mossberg of the WSJ reviews Samsung s i730.
This new phone, the $599 Samsung i730, has one major capability the $399 Treo lacks — the ability to surf the Web and to send and receive email at broadband speeds. I don’t expect to see an EVDO-capable Treo until very late this year or early in 2006. And the Treo lacks Wi-Fi capability. So the Samsung is the fastest email and Web device with a built-in keyboard that is small enough to be used comfortably as a phone.In my tests, I was able to get on the Web with the i730 at speeds ranging from 220 kilobits a second to 534 kilobits a second, which is between three and eight times as fast as the Treo’s average speed of 70 kilobits a second. Unlike my Sprint Treo, the Verizon i730 can’t be used as a modem for a laptop. These limitations probably stem more from business decisions by Verizon than from technological limitations.
The first implementation of Verizon’s EV-DO delivers 300-500kbps downstream (1.4 Mb/s under the tower) and about 64kbps upstream. EV-DO Rev. B results in roughly 3.1 Mb/s downstream and 1.8 Mb/s upstream (under the tower), which would improve the technology’s ability to support voice-over-IP (VoIP) services on its data-only channels as well as symmetrical video phone service.
Here’s a 2-way video chat session from a car traveling down highway in New York. It uses a PowerBook G4 15 inch, iSight Camera, iChat AV , Verizon’s BroadBandAccess (EVDO), PC 5220 Card and a EVDO antenna. Apple’s Tiger takes iChat to the next level with H.264.
Sprint went with EV-DO after they realized that they could deliver VoIP via EV-DO (Rev.B) enhanced up-channel — and didn’t have to wait for the 3G EV-DV (Data and Voice) standard. Sprint EV-DO service is not yet available, but is expected to be available this summer.
Cingular plans to leapfrog both Verizon and Sprint with GSM-based HSPDA.
Cingular Wireless, the largest cellular provider in the United States, with about 49 million subscribers, has 3G (UMTS) service in six markets, including Seattle, but is not actively selling the service or devices for it. The networks were originally launched by AT&T Wireless before Cingular acquired the Redmond-based company. Atlanta-based Cingular now plans to upgrade the cities to a faster HSDPA technology, and relaunch it later this year in 15 to 20 other cities.
Kansas-based Sprint agreed last December to acquire Nextel, of Reston, Va., for $36 billion. Sprint Nextel would be the nation’s third-largest wireless provider after number one Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless, now number two.
Additional information is at Verizon’s EVDO web site, EV-DO Info, EV-DO Coverage, SprintInfo, Sprint Users, EV-DO StompBox and AT&T’s EDGE. DailyWireless has more on Global Mobile Television, HSPDA in China, CDMA vs OFDM, Sprint Commits to EV-DO, Cingular’s 3G Network, AT&T Launches 3G and Cellular at the Races.
Transit agencies, taxis and limousines might add WiFi. Just add a WiFi access point with an integrated EV-DO backbone. No sweat.
Vendors include Junxion Box, Omniway, Kyocera’s KR1 EVDO/WiFi Router, the StompBox, and Entree Box. Getting Verizon to approve might be the biggest barrier. Fire up your spreadsheet. TriMet’s 100 light rail cars carry about 80,000 riders each weekday. If 5,000 riders paid $10/mo, that’s $50K/month.
Tell the feds it’s for transit security.
Related DailyWireless articles include; Manpack Cellular Backbones, Public Service Roaming, Transit Wireless, Wireless Monorail, Limousine Wi-Fi, Highspeed Mobile Roaming, Internet Rickshaw, WiFi on Canadian Trains, Wi-Fi Ferry, Wi-LAN’s Transit Wireless, Intercontinental WiFi, Fun with Flat Panels, Underground Wireless, Wi-Fi on Trains, On The Bus, Cybercar, Transit Mapping, Transportation MESH, Mapping To Go, WiFi Caravan II, Inter-Op Wi-Fi, Intelligent Transportation, Oregon’s Statewide Wireless Net, Mobile HotSpot, Totally Unwired Access Points, Tracking RF-ID, Sharing a satellite van, College WiFi Van, Satellite Wi-Fi, Digital Pony Express, Roger and Me, The Future of Train Travel and T-Mobile Brings WiMax to Trains.
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