Sign the petition: freetheiphone.org if you are interested.

Nice.

This past weekend, I decided to take the (COSTLY) plunge of signing up for Verizon's 1xEV-DO service.

Evolution Data Only or Evolution Data Optimized, often abbreviated as EVDO, EV-DO, EvDO, 1xEV-DO or 1xEvDO is a wireless radio broadband data protocol being adopted by many CDMA mobile phone providers in Brazil, Japan, Korea, Israel, the United States, Australia and Canada as part of the cdma2000 standard. 1xEVDO is pronounced "One Ex-E:- Vee-Dee-Oh." It is commonly referred in the industry as DO (Dee-Oh).

Compared to 1xRTT networks currently being used by operators, or the GPRS and EDGE networks employed by their GSM competitors, 1xEV-DO is significantly faster, providing access terminals with download speeds of up to 2.4 Mbit/s. Only terminals with 1xEV-DO chipsets can take advantage of the higher speeds.

Source: Wikipedia

Has it lived up to its promise?

Came home, installed the VZAccess Manager and relevant driver softwares on my Lenovo Thinkpad T-42 and after a few anxious minutes, I was up and running thanks to Verizon Wireless's PC 5740 Card that came with the package. And yes, it worked from get go. But the real killer was when I found myself talking to my dad (in India) on Google Talk driving on I-880 at > 60 mph. And no, I was not driving. And yes, it all worked and worked like a charm..;-) Oh, and I had a really nifty laptop adapter (Maker: Kerio Technologies) that sucked the power from my car and fed my T-42.

I have so far seen download speeds range from 150 kbps to 550 kbps depending upon where I was in the Bay Area. The theoretical max is 2.4 Mbps. Frankly, anything above 250 Kbps is just fine for the kinda stuff I plan on doing while on the road.

Theoretically, the PC Card seamlessly downgrades to the 1xRTT service in areas where Verizon currently does not have EV-DO service. Come to think of it, it would be kinda cool to test the veracity of their "NationalAccess" (1xRTT) and "BroadbandAccess" (1xEV-DO) coverage maps (shown above), although that will have to wait until I plan my next serious road trip.

What I still need to test?

I still need to test this puppy at the beach..;-)

So, what's next?

A Sony Viao T350 (or some other ultra ultra portable laptop) which has an in-built EV-DO (or similar 3.5G service) card..;-)

Ok, that's enough. I have been patiently observing and vicariously enjoying the emergence of mobile broadband applications through the Russell Beattie and Om Malik's of the world. Bottomline, I need to dump my Moto Vxx and get a new Treo 650! Ofcourse, it would be nice to get on a 3G (and not a 2.5G) network.

With very little background in digital cellular technology, I tend to get lost in the alphabet soup surrounding 3G standards. Found this really cool diagram @ Answers.com that I think will be of great help (at least to me).