Do you own a laptop? Do you travel frequently? Do you like to use idle moments while traveling to work online, catch up on your e-mail or just surf the Web (as opposed to, say, playing Windows Solitaire)? Yes? Then I have just the thing you need. If you’re not already aware of it, EV-DO (for Evolution-Data Optimized) is a boon for serious mobile laptop users.
The other day, I was taking the Airport Express bus to SFO from the Charles M. Schulz (Sonoma County) Airport on my way to the heat and humidity of Fort Worth, Texas. A young woman was sitting across the bus aisle from me, and as soon as we got underway, she pulled a sleek little HP laptop computer from her bag, inserted a small, lumpy-looking card into the slot on one side of her machine and fired the whole thing up. Moments later, she was reading and replying to e-mail on her corporate network using Microsoft Outlook—which she did all the way to SFO, making good use of the two-hour drive. (I, on the other hand, caught up on my sleep.)
In fact, with an EV-DO card for your laptop and an associated service plan, you can use the Internet much of the way down Interstate 5 to Los Angeles, at speeds that compare favorably to DSL. Pretty darn cool! Of course, you have to be a hardcore Internet connectivity junkie to subscribe to EV-DO, since service typically costs $80 a month ($60 if you have an associated voice plan) plus the card itself ($50 to $100 after rebates).
A minor issue: Only Verizon and Sprint (who market their services as BroadbandAccess and Mobile Broadband, respectively) presently offer EV-DO service nationwide. Cingular (I think that’s its name this month) offers a competing technology called EDGE, which has lower performance than EV-DO. So, if you don’t have (or want) a Verizon or Sprint/Nextel cell phone, you’ll be paying the $80 fee. It costs a lot of money to roll out the radio infrastructure needed to support EV-DO so don’t expect a dramatic price decrease due to competition. Obviously, the $20 price reduction is an incentive to get you to give them your voice business as well.
You’ll also need the lumpy-looking PC card although both Sprint and Verizon will make you a deal on one as part of signing up for the package. There are only a handful of EV-DO card makers (Sierra Wireless, Kyocera, Novatel and Audiovox), so you’ll get one of these with a Sprint or Verizon label on it. Both Sprint and Verizon offer PC cards for as little as $50 after rebate. You may want to consider paying a bit more to get a card with an external antenna connector, which will let you connect an external antenna to improve reception. My experience with Verizon’s service is that the ability to place a cellular call doesn’t necessarily mean you can make a data connection in the same location.
You may also be wondering whether Sprint or Verizon is the better choice. The only definitive answer I can give you is to check their coverage maps closely (make sure you’re checking the coverage for EV-DO and not normal cell phone coverage). Verizon claims “181 major metropolitan areas and 148 million people” while Sprint is reported to cover 220 cities. Don’t you just love marketing descriptions of factual information? Regardless, the only thing that matters is how well a given provider’s service actually works where you’re using it.
One reason to consider Sprint is it’s announced aggressive plans to roll out “Revision A” EV-DO service, which should increase download speeds up to 33 percent. If you want all the gory details, check out WikiPedia (www.wikipedia.org) and search for “EV-DO.”
As for the best EV-DO PC card, my current vote would be for the Kyocera KPC650, generally about $100 after rebate. Even though it costs more than the Aircard PC5740 that Verizon and Sprint both offer for about $50 after rebate, it has much better performance. This is, in part, due to its flip-up antenna as opposed to the lump-style antenna I saw on the Airport Express. The KPC650 also offers an external antenna connection, which the 5740 does not. Of course, the “best” hardware changes regularly. A good source of current information is www.EVDOinfo.com (where you can also get cards and service). One downside to those flip-up antennas—they’re more easily damaged than the “lumpy” kind.
My daughter rides horses competitively, and she typically competes in out-of-the-way places (the outskirts of Fresno, for example). Horse shows generally involve a lot of waiting around, with brief flurries of activity when someone you know is actually riding a horse. Last time we were at a competition, I quietly wondered how much it would cost to bring a satellite Internet link (like the one Vista Broadband provides for KZST events) to the show and then sell service to other parents who wouldn’t mind some Web-based distraction to fill the time.
With EV-DO, this is simple. Just buy one of these cool green Junxion boxes ($699, www.junxion.com) or a less-flamboyant (and less expensive) KR-1 from Kyocera ($299 or less). These EV-DO WiFi routers establish a local WiFi network (so nearby WiFi-enabled laptops can connect to it) and then route traffic from that local network to and from the Internet using the EV-DO connection. Presto! You’re an instant WiFi provider.
Given the throughput of an EV-DO link, this set-up won’t handle a lot of people downloading music or video simultaneously, but it’s just fine for multiple people checking e-mail and visiting normal Web pages. An EV-DO router is also great if you want to connect a bunch of laptops to the Internet in a hotel conference room (avoiding the high cost of hotel-provided Internet connectivity), say for a group training session.
By the way, if you stay in hotels that don’t offer free Internet access, an EV-DO card will let you avoid paying an additional charge (and then you can use Skype, which I wrote about in my August column, to make free phone calls).
Of course, the next problem is how to keep your laptop powered up to take advantage of ubiquitous Internet connectivity with your EV-DO card. Did I mention fuel cells for laptops? Perhaps next month.
