VAR Says EV-DO Unties Workers

George Brown is betting that road warriors who found Wi-Fi liberating will be ecstatic over EV-DO.

This third-generation (3G) cellular technology—EV-DO stands for Evolution-Data Optimized—promises to boost the speed of data transmission exponentially and free users from the need for a Starbucks or American Airlines Admiral’s Club hot spot.

Brown, president of Database Solutions, a Cherry Hill, N.J., solution provider, is sold on the technology, and he’s implementing a pilot using Sprint’s nascent EV-DO technology for customer Orthovita, a Malvern, Pa., biotech company.

EV-DO effectively boosts wireless performance to 500 Kbps from about 115 Kbps, so even large files such as PowerPoint presentations can be sent over wide-area cellular connections. Sprint, Overland Park, Kan., claims that users will see speeds that are 10 times faster than previous wireless data plans. Typical download speeds will range from 300 Kbps to 500 Kbps with peak rates hitting up to 2.4 Mbps, according to Sprint.

“EV-DO is powerful and fast enough, and with plans at around $80 per month for all-you-can-eat, [it] is starting to rival hot-spot plans,” Brown noted.

Anyone who has totaled up all their miscellaneous Wi-Fi access charges over the course of a month can probably relate to that.

T-Mobile offers a $29.99 per-month unlimited hot-spot access for 12 months and daily one-off deals for about $10. The problem is that many users end up signing up and paying for multiple Wi-Fi access accounts, a practice that can become expensive and unwieldy to track.

Brown also said the carriers—including Sprint and Verizon—have built enough security around EV-DO to allay concerns.

“There’s a lot of tension growing around the security threats to Wi-Fi—hot spots get picked off,” Brown said. In addition, many hotels used by business travelers are taking out wired networks and instead offering these same security-challenged Wi-Fi access points, he noted.

On the flip side, EV-DO technology is so young that Sprint is still rolling out the necessary infrastructure. A Sprint spokeswoman said that by early 2006 the company expects to cover 60 U.S. metropolitan areas with the potential to reach more than 150 million people. The rival Verizon Wireless BroadbandAccess plan now covers about 35 metro areas in the United States, according to Verizon.

EV-DO also requires a PC plug-in card—support for it has not yet been built into chips. Sprint offers a special deal on the Sierra Wireless aircard at about $250.

But Brown is bullish, having tested out the service himself.

“I can use this to pull over and support a customer from my laptop on the road. I don’t have to find a hot spot, I can pull over or go into a McDonald’s and use the Microsoft remote desktop to work on customers’ machines,” he said. “Wi-Fi remains faster with Ethernet-like speeds of 11.5 Mbps, but you have to be within 100 feet of an access point. It’s for localized fast wireless connections. This is more ubiquitous with moderate-speed connections.”

Joe Paiva, CFO of Orthovita, is similarly enthused. The company initially planned to deploy the service just to its roving sales and support people but now will probably deploy it more widely, he said. “The genesis of this was to address our sales folks, but as I looked into it, I found people inside could also benefit,” Paiva said. The company is now undergoing a 30-day pilot, he said.

“My perception is this will significantly increase our productivity and throughput in communicating and we can transact business with it,” he said.

Gerry Purdy, principal analyst at research firm MobileTrax, said the usual early adopters and bleeding-edge pioneers will probably board the EV-DO train but more conservative users will carefully weigh the costs.

“I don’t think most of the users will tolerate [an average of] $90 per month for wireless data,” he noted.

The latest-generation EV-DO’s performance may put it in the ballpark, but the cost differential remains huge for most users, Purdy said. “Most [Wi-Fi] hot spots charge around $7.95 a day or $30 a month for unlimited use,” he said.