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August 29, 2006

Novatel Has EVDO Rev. A Card, But There's No Network Yet

By Glenn Fleishman

Novatel ships the S720 for Sprint: The card supports the much faster revision to CDMA-based EVDO service, which both Verizon and Sprint will start lighting up by year’s end. Rev. A offers good upload speeds—several hundred K on average—and has higher peak download speeds (above 2 Mbps) and better average speeds, running up as high as over 800 Kbps. The cards need to be available for corporate folks to test them out, and they’re backward compatible to the current Rev. 0, of course. Getting these out in the marketplace makes a lot of sense for those who want to be ready for the higher speeds as soon as they’re available. The Rev. A network plans won’t cost more than Rev. 0 plans, just as current EVDO includes 1xRTT (low-speed) for areas without EVDO Rev. 0.

Novatel says that Sprint will charge $250 for the card without a plan and $100 with a two-year service agreement. Rates vary from metered use at $40 per month to unmetered (but not unlimited) use at $60 or $80. The $60 rate will now be available for a two-year commitment without a voice plan, which was previously a requirement for Sprint and Verizon.

Posted by Glennf at August 29, 2006 2:08 PM

Categories: EVDO, PC Card

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