EvDO High-Speed Wireless vs. 802.11
willll writes "The Washington Post is running a story about EvDO (Evolution Data Only), a high-speed wireless technology. It can work anywhere that a mobile phone can work, one of its main advantages over WiFi. Companies such as Verizon and Lucent are looking into the technology." From the article, I'm not sure that EvDO can be directly compared to WiFi connections (and the article does not mention current long-range 802.11 ISPs), but it's still interesting.
You have to wonder about the reliability of an internet connection that works over cell phone networks. Yes, many of the disconnections you experience with cell phones are due to moving, I've experienced plenty of disconnects without any movement, and that's just the few times I've used someone elses cell phone (since I don't own one).
Forget the whales - save the babies.
From the article:
Because mobile phone companies barely have enough room to handle their voice traffic
This is particularly true in Verizon's case. However, they have implemented an innovative load-balancing system: when they think you have been on long enough, your call will be dropped to give someone else a chance.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I'm sorry, but I must have missed it. How is it that a cell phone network's speed can be increased 20 fold with only a software update?
My Systems
This is a lot like CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data), which was supposed to work over existing AMPS networks. It had the same basic problems - you had to update the cell site to make it work, and the cell carriers had to set aside some bandwidth for it.
However, unlike when CDPD was first rolled out, there is now a demand for such services....
www.eFax.com are spammers
A New Wireless Web Link
Phone Firms Testing High-Speed Technology Called EvDO
Technicians test a technology known as EvDO that provides wireless data connections 10 times as fast as a regular modem. (Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post)
By Christopher Stern
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 23, 2003; Page E01
WHIPPANY, N.J.
Inside a white van decked out with computer screens on the back of each seat, two Lucent Technologies Inc. technicians eagerly put their company's new wireless data network through its paces.
As the van rolls around a parking lot, one techie taps at a keyboard, and the screens jump from one Web site to another. Even the pages full of connection-clogging photos and graphics pop up at a speed rivaling any desktop computer tethered to the Internet by a cable or a telephone line.
For a grand finale, one of the technicians tunes into CNBC via the Internet. A dial-up connection would produce herky-jerky pictures and tinny sounds, but here the financial news channel comes in loud and clear.
The technology, known as EvDO (Evolution Data Only), provides wireless data connections that are 10 times as fast as a regular modem. Proponents say EvDO offers huge advantages over WiFi, another wireless data technology that is popping up around the country in hotel lobbies and coffee shops, and that it may even be the long sought path around local telephone and cable companies' lock on the high-speed Internet market in most residential areas.
But after learning some hard lessons in the last few years, the U.S. wireless industry is skittish about investing heavily in anything that does not have immediate promise of improving its bottom line.
EvDO would require wireless companies to spend billions of dollars to buy additional spectrum and update every cell tower in their networks with new software. But the industry is still smarting from the failure of other once promising wireless technologies: In Europe, "3G" (third generation) technologies were supposed to transform the economy, turning cell phones into mini-entertainment centers, but reality failed to live up to the hype.
Despite the expense and concerns about market demand for EvDO, it is already gaining a toehold in other countries and even in some small U.S. cities. It has been widely rolled out in South Korea, and Monet Mobile Networks Inc., a company based in Kirkland, Wash., launched EvDO networks last October in seven midwestern markets, including Sioux City, Iowa, and Grand Forks, N.D.
In addition to being far faster than WiFi, EvDO can work over existing cell phone networks and deliver a connection anywhere there is a mobile phone signal. In contrast, WiFi users must be within 300 feet or so of a base station or "hot spot."
Verizon Wireless executives say they were impressed by EvDO in market tests using Lucent's technology in the Washington area. Nortel Networks Ltd. equipment is also being tested in San Diego.
Bill Stone, Verizon Wireless executive director of network planning, said EvDO may prove to be a breakthrough for the entire wireless industry. He likens EvDO's potential to energize the mobile communications business to the introduction of the cell phone in the 1980s and its subsequent surge in popularity in the 1990s, when mobile phones moved from analog to digital technology.
"This could jump-start the industry all over again," Stone said.
A takeoff of EvDO would not only provide Verizon with a new high-speed Internet service to market, but it would probably help struggling equipment suppliers such as Lucent and Nortel, which have already developed the software and hardware to get the network up and running. Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc. and other cell phone makers would benefit from the introduction of new products capable of high-speed Internet access.
A U.S. launch of EvDO would also be a boon to San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., which controls many of the patents underlying the technology. The growing interest in EvDO adds to the momentum of Qualcomm's CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) standard that is now used by some of the largest wireless companies, including Verizon and Sprint Corp. Other companies are likely to migrate to CMDA in part because it uses spectrum more efficiently than rival wireless standards and opens the door to high-speed data technologies such as EvDO, according to Coleman Bazelon, a vice president at AnalysisGroup/Economics, a Boston-based research firm.
One of the biggest barriers to EvDO is that it requires wireless companies to set aside a slice of their valuable airwaves just to transmit data. Because mobile phone companies barely have enough room to handle their voice traffic, EvDO is likely to remain on the back burner until the firms can acquire more spectrum.
Some wireless industry analysts say that, notwithstanding the excitement about the technology, the scarcity of airwaves and ongoing tumult in the telecommunications industry makes the rollout of EvDO far from a sure thing. Jane Zweig, chief executive of Shosteck Group, a wireless industry consulting company, said there is no assurance that EvDO technology will ever be widely deployed in the United States. "To assume they will do all this" with EvDO "is a leap of faith," Zweig said.
Denny Strigl , chief executive of Verizon Wireless Inc., has cautioned that the company will go slow on the new technology. Still, company spokesman Andrea Linskey said EvDO is a natural extension of its current data offering, which provides access to the Internet at speeds comparable to a dial-up modem. Verizon agreed last month to buy a large slice of airwaves in 50 markets for $750 million, in part to make room for future services such as EvDO, Linskey said.
While EvDO would require huge investments by cash-strapped telecommunications companies, WiFi's popularity stems largely from the fact that it is an inexpensive and relatively simple technology to get into operation. For about $200, anyone can buy a WiFi network's basic components and, with some computer savvy and a lot of luck, have it running in less than an hour.
A consortium of telecommunications and technology companies that includes Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp. and AT&T Corp. is backing a WiFi company named Cometa Networks Inc., which plans to string together more than 20,000 WiFi "hot spots" into a nationwide wireless network.
Even with thousands of hot spots around the country, Cometa executives acknowledge that the company will not be able to offer blanket coverage. Instead, the goal is to provide a hot spot within a five-minute walk of any office in an urban area or five-minute drive in a suburban area, according to Steve Harris, vice president for corporate affairs at Cometa Networks. Boingo Wireless Inc., another firm putting together a national WiFi network, plans to have 5,000 hot spots running by the end of the year.
Critics and rivals say that creating a national network from tens of thousands of hot spots is more difficult and expensive than Cometa and others expect. And to create a truly national network that would have the reach of a cell-phone system would require more than 100,000 hot spots.
"To put together a national WiFi network is going to be extremely complicated and take a long time," said George M. Tronsrue III, chief executive of Monet.
Unlike Verizon Wireless, which probably would launch EvDO over its existing wireless network, Monet built a stand-alone wireless system in the seven markets where it operates. Monet's system bypasses the local phone network, commonly known as the local loop, offering high-speed connections in some places where wired high-speed service is unavailable. Competition in the high-speed Internet business has been stymied largely by the huge expense of building a wired connection to every house and building in a market.
"This technology allows you to have a broadband connection that unlocks the local loop," said Tronsrue, Monet's chief executive.
Monet launched in October and so far has about 1,000 customers, according to the company. Most of its subscribers are business customers that use the high-speed connection to download inventory lists and spreadsheets that would bog down when moving on a slower connection, although, like a cable broadband network, EvDO's access speeds do slow as more people sign on. That fits in with Lucent's prediction that EvDO will be popular with business travelers who often are now limited to the dial-up Internet service in hotel rooms or the pokey wireless networks currently offered by Verizon and Sprint.
Like Cometa, Tronsrue has big-name investors, including billionaire George Soros and Intel, and he is excited about the EvDO technology. But he has also learned that there are no sure things in technology. "Right now our main target is that at the end of 2003, we are still operating."
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
"Technicians test a technology known as EvDO that provides wireless data connections 10 times as fast as a regular modem."
But then later in the article they state it is much faster than wifi so I am a bit confused. I'd classify a regular modem as a 56k dialup modem. Does anyone know any actual speed measurements for EvDO?
People have been leeching off 802.11 networks for too long. Maybe this will be something they will pay for.
no way. people dont like to pay for anythig. why would this be any different? if there is a network, there will be those who hack it for the connection, regardless of how cheap or great the service.
xao
xao
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Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
is that Adolf Hitler's clone is now 21 and lives on the east coast. Just a heads up.
Or is anyone else sick of hearing about 802.11 and 3G wireless?
Let's see some articles about wires!
Cat3, Cat5e, Coax, Fiber, Copper strands, it makes no difference!
Wires are where it's at. Less NET, more WORK.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Or is this an implementation of it?
I would love to just be able to roam around with my C-phone and a palm or laptop...
ttyl
Farrell
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In Europe, "3G" (third generation) technologies were supposed to transform the economy, turning cell phones into mini-entertainment centers, but reality failed to live up to the hype.
Its difficult to say that '3G' or UMTS to be exact has failed in Europe, as most have not yet launched due to the financial strife in the telecoms sector limiting investment into the new infrastructure. In fact Hutchinson's Three (UK's first UMTS network) will be going live soon
Granted this pressure has resulted in GPRS '2.5G' becoming more widely adopted, and this can provide many of the benefits of UMTS as far as the user is concerned such as reasonable speed mobile data access, whilst being a step upgrade to the GSM netwrok so cheaper to role out and not needing thousands of new masts (UMTS needs masts in different physical locations as it uses a different radio system - see later)
In this respect Europe is in a more fortunate than the US as GSM digital cellular networks have become the standard, so the upgrade to GPRS is a logical one.
The growing interest in EvDO adds to the momentum of Qualcomm's CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) standard that is now used by some of the largest wireless companies, including Verizon and Sprint Corp
This is a strange tack to take, given the dismisal of '3G' as a failure a few lines before.
In Europe the new standard chosen to replace GSM was UMTS, which is based on a CDMA radio sub system. This is a spread spectrum method which brings many benefits, but means you need new masts as the radio coverage is different.
In the US you have Qualcomm's CDMA 2000 system which will evolve into the W-CDMA standard
In practical aspect these are equivalent systems, at least as far as the radio engineering goes - the differences mainly being in how the networks are run and how data is transfered, the underlying carrier technology is very similar, and infact most of the equipment is the same, differing only in the management systems.
So in Europe the delayed roll out of UMTS can be seen really as a factor of the depressed state of the telecoms market, and the fact that the cheaper to roll out GSM based GPRS system gives you high speed data access.
In the US there is no easy upgrade from an existing network as GSM didn't make much of an inroad and the better range in fringe areas of analogue systems like TACS is more suitable to the larger country.
Realistically the only way for the major equipment providers to realise the return on investment of thier CDMA technology is to go after the one thing the alternatives don't do well, the domain of large scale wireless data access.
It seems to me that they've learned the wrong lessons, then. The correct response to "We got burned investing in things which could never generate sufficient revenue to earn a return" is not "Invest only in things that will yield immediate returns".
In fact, I'm almost certain that our current economic woes are due primarily to a management mentality that focuses on this quarter's numbers withou scarcely a thought toward two, five, ten years down the line.
How about trying to invest in things that will secure enough revenue to cover the cost and earn additional income over whatever the life of the technology may be?
I mean, this is, I think, basic economics. Isn't it?
--blob
All sweeping generalizations suck.
Sure, if you don't mind paying the RIAA $5 a song, even if it is completely legal.
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One of the (dis)advantages of being immortal is cluttering one's mind up with triva like this.
www.eFax.com are spammers
This is particularly true in Verizon's case. However, they have implemented an innovative load-balancing system: when they think you have been on long enough, your call will be dropped to give someone else a chance.
Verizon isn't the only provided that drops long calls, its the defacto way to let someone new on when the tower is full.
Now, I wouldn't think Verizon would be as bad off as Cingular. Verizon is CDMA based (Code-Division) as opposed to TDMA (Time-Division) that Cingular is based on. You'd think CDMA would have an advantage. Pictures aren't on the site aparently, but they explain the differences well here, or just do some Googling.
To tangent off this slightly... My brother just got a VoiceStream phone from work. He works in the city and we live in the 'burbs. There's apparently only one tower in the area. If you leave the phone by the window, it will go up and down in signal strength from full to 1 bar (of four) in the course of about ten minutes. As far as we can reason, its because someone is making a call.
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The Data Only (DO) version the article talks about needs its own carrier freq, so the providers must set aside valuable spectrum for data only services (read: expensive). Since none of them can seem to spare the money or the bandwidth at this point, I don't think anyone is eager to implement it, even though the equipment already exists to deploy it.
:)
What will be interesting will be the DV (Data-Voice) standard, which can carry both data (up to 5Mbps) and voice at the same time in the same spectrum used by current 1xRTT and Ev-DO channel. I believe SprintPCS has already decided to skip over DO and go straight to DV, sometime around 2005 when the base station equipment and handsets will become available. It might even happen sooner, if Qualcomm feels pressure from GSM/EDGE/WCDMA camp.
Let the wireless web wars begin
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Verizon is already offering something similiar called "Express Network" that is available on the new expensive 3G phones. For something like a hundred bucks a month they will give you unlimited access as speeds that can max out at close to ISDN.
Sprint is rolling out a similiar service too.
Funny thing is that those technologies aren't catching very much. 3G isn't as big as everyone thought. And as much as I'd like to have 144 on my laptop, I'd need a laptop first, or maybe more than 44k at home. So, my question is, what makes this new in different in a way that will make it catch on?
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...that these two wireless formats will soon work together, to allow for a combined effect, where a cellphone, as an example, can jump to an 802 network when it fails to find a normal signal...and the opposite will occur as well.
Imagine running SETI on idle cellphones....
"10 times faster than a regular modem"
"far faster than wifi"
Something doesn't add up here.
Guys, I'd really love to see this implemented. I live just about 1 mile from DSL access, and sattilite isn't available, and of course wireless isn't either. They would see a lot of sales if this was used, and of course it would be very quick to do so using the whole mobile phone system. How fast, or how reliable it is would be a factor though.
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I am a user of Sprint Broadband Direct - a microwave broadband solution that provides excellent speeds (I routinely get 500k bytes/sec downloads). However, they are no longer selling it, and are working on "a new system." It sounds like the new system will be deployed at cell towers, so I suspect it is this evdo or something similar. Unfortunately, I can't get Sprint cell signals here and am afraid I will lose my service when they switch!
Does anyone know if Sprint going in this direction, and if not... just where are they going?
The only good weather is bad weather.
I don't know about anybody else, but I do not have tons of money to spend per month on a wireless service. In fact, anything over $40 is too much for me. All of these services are just too expensive. Most services now providing data give you something like 20 megabytes for almost a hundred dollars. That's ridiculous. If this service wants to work I should be getting DSL/Cable equivalent speeds, and have nearly unlimited data.
With WiFi, I can just find open networks and use their internet on my Pocket PC. The price? $50 for a WiFi card, and $200 for a Dell Axim. Now, I don't get national coverage, but honestly, it's not a big deal to me, and if these services want to get to the average Joe, then they're going to figure out how to do it cheaper or do some serious price lowering.
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Only 2.4 Mbps? Compared to Wi-fi's 11 Mbps?
Link: here
[quote] At the recent Telecom Asia exhibition in Hong Kong, Samsung showed for the first time its M400 handset. Based on Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition, the device runs on CDMA 2000 1x EvDO (Evolution Data Only) networks, which are in commercial service in South Korea and offer data transmission at speeds of up to 2.4M bps. Features of the phone, which is based on an Intel Corp. XScale processor running at 400MHz, include a display capable of showing 65,000 colors, voice recognition and a text-to-speech engine, a TV tuner and GPS (Global Positioning System). [/quote]
Linux is only free if you consider your time worthless
I didn't know that slashdot mods you up for stealing!
Posting a url must make it ok. I will remember this next time when I troll and karma whore.
I don't need 1xEV-DO at work, because work is crawling with Ethernet cables. I don't need 1xEV-DO at home, because it's cheaper to buy WiFi equipment directly instead of paying for wireless by the packet. The only reasons I need wireless data in my car are for driving directions when I'm lost, which - being male - I wouldn't use anyway, and for streaming audio, for which I have a hi-tech device called a "radio" (or, more likely, a "six-disc CD changer").
By the time 1xEV-DV gets to market, McDonald's will have WiFi and you'll get free bandwidth with your Happy Meal. (They'll sell your data to advertisers and interrupt with McDonald's ads, but, hey, free bandwidth.) WiFi destroys the business case for cellular data, just as the unregulated Internet destroys the business case for pop music, and in the long-term WiFi even threatens the core cellular business of providing wireless voice.
Perhaps the real question is whether the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) will someday find itself where the RIAA is today - fighting its customers in a desperate effort to squeeze the last dollar from a dying business model. Time for the Free Spectrum Foundation?
American 3G, (CDMA 2000) is doing very well indeed. It does not require new spectrum and has already been deployed heavily all over the world. European 3G (WCDMA) is in big trouble. It requires new spectrum, and the vendors are behind by years.
All the articles you see that claim 3G to be a failure are talking about European 3G. Ill-informed journalists fail to make the distinction clear.
EVDO is part of American 3G.
Magnus.
Wasn't your reference indicating that your handle is "thr0d ps1t," and it did not necessarily refer to the ordinal value of your post?
WiFi and EVDO are two entirely different things, for two entirely different markets. Sure, EVDO is not going to be able to compete with WiFi as a LAN solution. Probably not as a hotspot solution either. It is also true that EVDO cannot compete with WiFi as far as airspeed is concerned.
However, WiFi is severly limited by its limited range, and the fact that there is no model for billing/roaming. So when you leave McDonalds and go to Starbucks, you have to go through the disconnect/connect mechanism once again.
An EVDO tower can service about a 2-mile radius in a heavily populated neighborhood, and a 6-10 mile radius in a rural neighborhood. The provider has to pay for just once backhaul connection to the base station servicing the tower. In a dense WiFi deployment, the provider has to pay essentially for 1 backhaul to each access point. You would need hundreds to just provide the same basic coverage as the EVDO tower. These costs can mount very rapidly indeed.
Furthermore, EVDO supports full mobility. WiFi does not. Mobility is a necessary component of ubiquity. Once such a service exists, there will be apps that take advantage of it.
The people who develop EVDO/WiFi equipment seem to recognize that these technologies are complementary. For e.g., handoff between and EVDO network and a WiFi network has been recently demonstrated.
Granted, there is not much chance that EVDO will be deployed in the US, but it seems to be doing well abroad (e.g., Korea). There also appears to be interest from Latin America for use as a DSL replacement.
Magnus.Who the hell modded this up. The poster is totally mistaken on everything.
...the RIAA has already announced plans to lobby for a surcharge to ISPs that carry EvDO services, saying the only reason anyone would want to use EvDO would be to pirate their copyrighted intellectual property.
"This is even worse than standard broadband," RIAA head Hilary Rosen was quoted as saying, "because it allows piracy to occur even from moving vehicles." The RIAA estimates that an EvDO user downloading music in a vehicle moving at 10mph is equivalent to two cable/DSL users. At 50mph, the number jumps up to 10. At 75mph, it's the equivalent of a school bus full of people.
News of the RIAA's pre-emptive financial strike against this groundbreaking technology is already rippling through the industry and consumer groups: In a bizarre alliance, a small group of high-ranking members of the EFF and representatives from the nation's largest ISPs have banded together in an effort to construct or otherwise acquire a suitcase-based nuclear device. The group says they will draw straws to determine who among them hand-delivers the parcel to RIAA headquarters. "I hope it's me," says EFF co-founder John Gilmore, "I'd like to see the look on that cunt Rosen's face just before I push the button."
EvDo looks interesting, but this article reads like a paid advertisement. The article says that EvDo is "10 times faster than any modem"... well since modems (and I do believe they are talking about dial up modems, not cable modems) only get up to 56kbps, we're talking about a whopping big 560kbs... My 802.11g gives me 54Mbps. The spectrum concerns are also real. Cell phone companies are not going to give up revenue generating bandwidth for a new service that people aren't screaming for.
I was part of a group that tested this in Anchorage using the Airvana equipment. I was not impressed at all. I really sucked for terminal sessions because it was very bursty. It was kinda ok for web but no where near the speed that was claimed. The test is still going on so they may have fixed some of the bugs. They didn't have anything other that Windows software for the PC card and it even used the dialup interface. I feel it still needs a lot of work before it goes mainstream. YMMV.
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>EVDO is part of American 3G.
Indeed. When the IMT-2000 standards process was being developed to define "3G", the Americans and Europeans couldn't agree, so we ended up with a "standard" that consisted of serveral incompatible technologies.
The Europeans came up with W-CDMA (which technically a subset of UMTS, but the two terms are often used interchangeably) which uses CDMA based technology based on wide (3.84 MHz) chunks of spectrum.
Qualcomm in the US proposed a two stage process to 3G: firstly a jump to what they call CDMA2000 1X, which uses spectrum chunks the same size (1.23MHz) as existing CDMA networks. (This provides faster data rates than 2G, but does not quite satisfy the full requirements of 3G). The second stage is a jump to what they call CDMA2000 3X, which uses spectrum chunks precisely three times the size (3.69MHz) of existing CDMA networks.
However, Qualcomm's engineers, who have had some years head start on the Europeans on CDMA technology, managed to develop a system capable of delivering the full 3G data speed requirements using the existing 1.23MHz chunks of spectrum. (They did this mainly be changing the modulation scheme and abandoning some of the overhead needed for voice - this is a data technology only ). This technology was initially called HDR, and has now been renamed 1xEV-DO. (DO for "Data Only"). The advantages of this over 3X are that it is more spectrum efficient, and it can sit alongside existing CDMA in the same spectrum band). This technology is new a key part of Qualcomm's CDMA2000 3G offering. In fact, 3X seems to have been largely abandoned, as 1xEV-DO can go everything it can do but more cheaply and more efficiently).
Qualcomm is also talking about another technology, 1xEV-DV (Data and Voice, rather that Data Only), which allows voice calls and uses the same modulation scheme as 1xEV-DO. I am not sure if they have this one working yet, however.
As pointed out earlier, EV-DO/DV can't really be compared to 802.11. It's more of a complimentary technology - 802.11 has the speed, EV-DO/DV has the coverage and range.
Best comparisons for EV-DO/DV are GPRS,1xRTT, and W-CDMA.
GPRS and 1xRTT are its slower speed predecessors. Both are in wide usage now. These are essentially 2.5G technologies. (Interim leading up to 3G)
W-CDMA and 1xEV-DO/DV are 3G. So far, 1xEV-DO/DV has been far more successful than W-CDMA. All W-CDMA has behind it is a legal mandate to use it, but in terms of actual service rollouts, 1xEV-DO/DV is far ahead. It's already in use in Korea and Japan, whereas W-CDMA was tried in Japan and turned DoCoMo's name into mud. (Mainly due to the fact that W-CDMA handsets are having the same battery life problems that the mainstream CDMA manufacturers solved many years ago.) 1xEV-DO/DV is also much easier for a carrier to roll out - cdmaOne phones will happily talk with 1xEV-DV towers, and in the case of DO towers, the same base station can handle voice traffic on a different carrier in the same frequency band. In modern base station designs, these carriers can go through the same RF path from baseband upwards. (As opposed to requiring a new frequency band and RF paths/antennas for UMTS W-CDMA at 2.11-2.17 GHz)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Dude... Wireless is fairly evil.. I'll go for the most honnest one.. :)
EvDO.. gotta be a compression of Evil DO
I don't actually exist.
... a sheep's bladder. Duh.
Double-plus good in California due to the earthquake protection side-effect.
-----Chaz
Can be found at http://arstechnica.com/reviews/02q2/qualcomm/1xEV- 1.html
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