Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless gear up for next gen wireless net support

Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless, the leading EV-DO wireless service providers in the United States, both announced at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment in Los Angeles this week plans to bolster support for EV-DO Revision A.

Sprint Nextel is adding more EV-DO Rev. A devices to its line of compatible gear and Verizon Wireless announced that it will be using Motorola network gear to upgrade to Rev. A.

EV-DO Rev. A not only supports higher speed wireless data transmissions with peak data rates of up to 3.1Mbps downstream and 1.8Mbps upstream, the technology is also said to better support VoIP, high-speed file transfers, real-time services such as push-to-talk, mobile television and video telephony.

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Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless, the leading EV-DO wireless service providers in the United States, both announced at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment in Los Angeles this week plans to bolster support for EV-DO Revision A.

Sprint Nextel is adding more EV-DO Rev. A devices to its line of compatible gear and Verizon Wireless announced that it will be using Motorola network gear to upgrade to Rev. A.

EV-DO Rev. A not only supports higher speed wireless data transmissions with peak data rates of up to 3.1Mbps downstream and 1.8Mbps upstream, the technology is also said to better support VoIP, high-speed file transfers, real-time services such as push-to-talk, mobile television and video telephony.

Current EV-DO deployments max out at about 2.4Mbps.

Sprint says it is making two additional wireless cards available to customers in the fourth quarter. The cards are the Sprint Mobile Broadband Card by Pantech (PX-500) and the Sprint Mobile Broadband Card by Sierra Wireless (Aircard 595). They will cost $199 and $99 respectively.

Sprint announced its plans in March to upgrade its wireless data network with EV-DO Rev. A later this year with faster services available in the first quarter of 2007.

The wireless service provider currently offers one Rev. A capable device, the Sprint Mobile Broadband Card by Novatel Wireless (S720).

Motorola has been one of Verizon Wireless’ network suppliers for a number of years. Based on Verizon and Motorola’s new deal, Verizon will use Motorola gear to upgrade its first generation, EV-DO Rev. 0 and CDMA 1xRTT sites to 1xEV-DO Rev. A.

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