For those laptop and ultra-portable PC owners who are currently using or thinking about using EV-DO, the Kyocera KR-1 EV-DO router is a suitable solution that will keep you connected to the Internet even away from hotspots.

The price of outfitting your KR-1, along with the appropriate wireless card for your machine and the carrier you selected, usually runs somewhere above $300. You insert the wireless card into the back of the KR-1 and it becomes an instant WiFi Hotspot and router for your LAN. For the entire month of September Kyocera will be selling the KR-1 EV-DO router with a $50 mail in rebate.

This little price reduction makes justifying the purchase of EV-DO service and equipment a little easier. Plus, you can add the $50 you saved on the cost of the router on the monthly service fees you'll be charged for the service. As a current EV-DO subscriber, and KR-1 user I can attest to the convenience it provides when traveling.

If you are a student or currently in a job that requires you to bring a computer with you into the field, a solution like the KR-1 provides unrivaled freedom, and the $50 rebate only sweetens the pot!

Sprint Nextel proudly announced its latest offering, the EV-DO Revision A network cards for laptops. Promising to increase average download speeds to 450 kilobits per second to 850kbps and upload speeds to between 300 kbps and 400 kbps, the new Novatel Wireless S720 Mobile Broadband cards definitely has more boost than its current version, which provides downloads between 400kbps and 700kbps with upload speeds of about 50kbps to 70kbps.

Sold through Sprint business sales channels, as well as online, for $249.99, the offer comes with a two-year subscriber contract, which can be availed by users for about $99.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement. Currently, service plans for the card range from $39.99 per month for 40 megabytes to $79.99 per month for unlimited data usage. With the two-year service contract, customers can get the unlimited data package for $59.99 per month.

Hopefully, Sprint will do their upgrades soon on their network to EV-DO Revision A Network. Without the upgrades, this speedier wireless laptop cards will be all for naught.

As EV-DO technology has become more and more popular over time the variety of solutions available to meet the needs of EV-DO users has become equally diverse. Carriers like Verizon and Sprint are currently in the process of maintaining and, in some cases, upgrading their EV-DO network infrastructure to keep up with the expected demand. The depth of the financial investment in network infrastructure alone demonstrates an iron clad commitment to the future of this technology on the part of the carriers.

The new AirCard 597E from Sierra Wireless is evidence that the next generation of EV-DO (known as Revision A) will be a viable competitor in the future of high speed wireless data services, and the investment will not have been in vain. "Built for notebook computers with ExpressCard expansion slots, the AirCard 597E will be fully compliant with network operator requirements and will offer user-friendly features such as Assisted GPS (aGPS) location based services; a robust, fixed antenna design; and an external antenna jack for flexibility and improved reception in fringe coverage areas or for specialized applications. The AirCard 597E is expected to begin shipping in the first quarter of 2007. ExpressCard models for HSDPA networks are expected to follow later in the year."

Sierra Wireless has been carefully watching the market and has plans to benefit from an overall trend in consumer habits that they expect to peak in 2007. "Notebook installations of ExpressCard slots are expected to move toward critical mass in 2007 - we are timing our ExpressCard products to match market adoption." said Trent Punnett, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Development for Sierra Wireless.

Since Dell and Apple (along with most all of the other manufacturers of laptops in the world) have moved to the express standard and basically abandoned the older PCMCIA standard, the market for express based network and storage solutions is expected to continue to grow. Eventually, everything will be done without wires, under one universal standard that is expandable, extensible, modular and fully self-sufficient (yeah right!). Until then we are left to choose between the various competing standards available today until we find a winner.

The inevitable, evolutionary movement towards the Revision A standard, that all EV-DO network providers will eventually undergo, moved a little faster recently as Sprint became the first provider to offer a wireless EV-DO card that's Rev A compatible.

The revision A standard of EV-DO (used by CDMA cellphone providers Verizon and Sprint) will provide speeds of 3Mbits per second when downloading and almost 2Mbits per second in the opposite direction.

The lower latency and better connectivity rates of the updated standard will make latency dependent technology like VOIP possible over an EV-DO connection. The new standard is also completely backwards compatible, but the higher speeds associated with Rev A are only achieved when a Rev A compatible wireless card is connected to an access point or gateway that is configured to accept traffic using the new standard.

In other words, until the carriers (Sprint and Verizon) upgrade their networks to operate within the new standard, the newly released Sprint Rev A compatible EV-DO card will only be capable of current generation speeds.

Current generation EV-DO speeds are decent (between 400 and 800 KBytes per second down and up to 400 KBytes Uploading), making it somewhat difficult to justify paying more for this new Rev A card before the carriers even upgrade their networks.

Until the network providers begin the task of upgrading their networks to Rev A, the new Merlin S720 will likely only appeal to EV-DO enthusiasts. However, if you are the type that always wants to get the latest toys before everyone else, the Merlin S720 might just be an ideal investment for you.

As we have reported in the past, the ability for rescue personnel to maintain open lines of communication throughout a disaster  relief effort is key to the success of the rescue effort. IP networks are uniquely suited for maintaining high traffic, multiple media format communications during a disaster.

Because they can be made to be scalable, modular, standardized, easily deployed and maintained in the field and are efficient at delivering high volume multi-channel traffic, IP networks are more suitable and provide the best results in chaotic disaster situations. While IP networks are a great solution, they are vulnerable to damage from multiple sources found in and around typical disaster relief areas and must be beefed up or "ruggedized" in order to meet the demands of the job.

Entree Wireless (the company that created the Mobile Communications System) is now offering the Rugged Warrior battery pack as a solo unit through the website EV-DO Info. The entire rescue communications kit contains video equipment, WiFi radio and battery, built in camera with a light, an external search camera, a video terminal and is aimed at established rescue units instead of volunteer rescue units or home users.

The rugged powerpack, now being offered alone, is less expensive and functions as battery power for the Kyocera KR1 router in the field. As a person who travels quite a bit and depends on the Kyocera KR1 EV-DO router to keep me connected to the Internet for completing posts and turning in homework, this product would help me tremendously.

However, with most laptop batteries putting out only a mere few hours of juice (my Dell E1705 puts out 1.5 hours, 2 at best), the remaining problem is finding power in the field for the laptop that will last as long as the Rugged Powerpack!

Finally, those of us who have laptops that use PCMCIA express technology as their only wireless card format can breath a sigh of relief. Verizon has released its Novatel manufactured express card with hopes that EV-DO will become the next big wireless technology. (EV-DO is a wireless technology that is transmitted from cellphone towers along with most cellphone signals.)

Currently, I am using a Kyocera KR1 router accompanied by a regular Kyocera wireless card instead of an express card, but I am very tempted to buy this because of its smaller size and faster potential speeds. Many people were forced to seek out hard-to-find alternate solutions when they realized that there was a nearly complete lack of options for express card solutions in the mainstream marketplace.

This release brings the total number of available express cards to three: one from Dell, one from Novatel and one from Verizon. Sprint claims to have one on the way too, but no release date has been set at this time.

It allows computer users who subscribe to a service plan from Verizon or Sprint (currently the only two EV-DO providers) to access the Internet at near broadband speeds. The PCMCIA express standard, which is considerably faster and more efficient than the older PCMCIA standard (the standard that has become ubiquitous in today's laptops), is the standard that will eventually become most common.

With the coming increase in efficiency and throughput on the network that will come as a result of the process of updating the infrastructure into compliance with the Revision A standard, providers like Sprint and Verizon are claiming that they will be able to offer top download speeds over 3Mbps using their EV-DO network under the newer rev A standard. Now that Verizon is starting to embrace this new technology, let's hope they'll remove the artificial caps that limit speeds and stop terminating the contracts of customers who like to do more than just surf!

EV-DO, sometimes known as wireless broadband, is not yet available throughout the entire US. However, plans are already in motion to upgrade the network from the current Rev 0 standard to Rev A, a faster, more efficient version of the standard. Many of the new laptops being sold today are equipped with internal EV-DO modems or express wireless card slots that can be used with EV-DO express cards to connect to the Internet.

Will the laptops of today that come with embedded EV-DO solutions and the Rev 0 express cards being sold today still be compatible with the EV-DO networks of tomorrow, or will they become obsolete? That's a question many people have been wondering. Fortunately, consumers don't have to worry about any upcoming upgrades to Verizon's or Sprint's EV-DO networks because EV-DO is backwards-compatible.

The current generation of laptops and EV-DO cards will continue to function at the same speeds they did before the network was upgraded to Rev A. They will not however, be able to take full advantage of the newfound throughput and efficiency made available by the upgraded system.

The current speeds for this generation of EV-DO are (from my own experience) between 400 and 800Kb/s when downloading and 60 and 150Kb/s uploading. The upcoming Rev A generation of EV-DO will bring speeds when downloading up to 3.1Mb/s and uploading speeds up to 1.8Mb/s.

These phenomenal new speeds will bring access to quality of service benefits such as reduced latency, and reliable access to VOIP. While many seem to think that we will see providers begin to make the transition to Rev A in 2007, others remind us that neither Sprint or Verizon has even completed the transition to Rev 0 yet.

EV-DO networks are still just works in progress, so it's likely that we will continue to see them grow steadily over time in an organic patchwork made up of multiple standards that is evolving every second. Some manufacturers seem to have jumped the gun and are planning to release Rev A capable EV-DO express cards before the end of this year.

Unfortunately, these cards wont be any faster than a current generation card until the network is upgraded to Rev A in your area. Until then we will continue to wait patiently (some of us are still waiting for EV-DO Rev 0!), secure in the knowledge that the network we are using is backwards-compatible.

Current generation CDMA2000 1xEV-DO provides decent speeds in both directions (512 Down and 128 Up), with potential bursts up to 2Mbps when downloading. Unfortunately, problems with high latency, inefficiency and limited upload speeds have conspired to make this version of EV-DO into nothing more than another step in the evolution of the growing technology.

Revision A is the next step in the evolution of EV-DO. Verizon Wireless, having chosen to follow the CDMA/EV-DO path instead of the GPRS/EGDE path, is now faced with the challenge of upgrading its entire network to the newer Revision A standard of EV-DO. Verizon's decision to continue using Lucent to build and upgrade its network will be helpful to the upgrade process, since all of Verizon's current hardware and software was created by Lucent.

When the Revision A upgrade is complete, users of the network can expect to see download speeds increase to a maximum of about 3Mbps down and 1.8 up. The increased throughput comes with the additional side benefits of lower latency and a more efficient and better functioning network overall.

With the switch, Verizon plans to offer additional services to customers that will take full advantage of the network's new found robustness. Voice over IP, streamed video and other multimedia applications will be available that would not be possible without the upgrades to the network. Hopefully, they will also find a way to bring the price down and make the EULA's that we sign more fair!

     

These USB dongles from Franklin Wireless can provide you with access to the Internet, at usable speeds, anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. The CCU 550 and the CDU 550 both allow the user to connect to an EV-DO network. Using these dongles makes it unnecessary to buy a PC card or an EV-DO router.

Even though I personally use a Kyocera KR1 EV-DO router with a PC card, I would gladly switch over to using one of these tiny things. Their tiny size alone makes them infinitely more portable than any of the other options. The dongles are even more convenient than PC cards, in terms of size.

With a single USB port you can maintain a wireless connection to the Internet. Sadly, there is currently no interest being shown by either of the major EV-DO providers in the US to market the device and there are no other publicly known plans to make the products available in the US.

Dell is the first manufacturer to release a version of the Novatel XV620 express EV-DO wireless card for laptops. Verizon and Sprint are currently the only two service providers capable of providing EV-DO coverage, via their extensive EV-DO capable networks.

The card is listed on the Dell site for $161, without service of any kind of course. Based on the 34mm form factor, this card will fit both the 34 and 54mm sizes of the express card slots currently available.

Verizon and Sprint both plan to offer a branded version of this same card to their own customers in the near future. This is good news for those who own notebooks that only have express card slots and no others. I am using EV-DO right now and I can expect real world speeds between 400 and 900KBps in the down direction and a maximum of around 300KBps uploading.

While currently EV-DO service is expensive and the results are not always perfect, EV-DO brings us one step closer to having wireless broadband everywhere we go! Hopefully the industry can find a balance between profits for providers and customer satisfaction that will keep everyone happy.