Verizon's EV-DO: On The Road

Continued from 'Verizon's EV-DO: Addictive Speed'….

This past Sunday, I flew from Sacramento to Boston via Dallas/Fort Worth. I ran three consecutive tests at the DFW airport bar; downstream/upstream results were 197/115, 200/66 and 200/55 Kbps, with ping times just slightly above 100 msec (the client software indicated that I was in a BroadbandAccess coverage area, but I wonder if it was mistaken and I was actually tapping into 1xRTT). Monday morning at my hotel in Waltham, MA, I ran three consecutive tests and obtained results of 527/123, 522/121 and 383/124 Kbps, again with 100+ msec ping times.

That night, still in MA, I realized that while I was obtaining average bandwidth numbers, I hadn't yet figured out what my peak downstream and upstream rates were. Fortunately, the Verizon software includes a statistics screen that (assuming it can be believed) provides this data; the screenshots reveal a peak download speed of 779.7 Kbps and upload speed of 179.8 Kbps. Thursday night, I had a seemingly solid connection, varying between 1xRTT and EV-DO, the entire Amtrak Acela Express trip from Boston to New York City. Early this morning, I ran benchmarks from my hotel room in the heart of New York City's Garment District; 449/123 and 415/130 Kbps speeds suggested I was connected to EV-DO, but the Verizon client software indicated (wrongly, I suspect) that I was on a NationalAccess (i.e. 1xRTT) network. I repeated the test a few hours later; this time the software correctly indicated a BroadbandAccess connection, and I got speeds of 479/120 and 483/128 Kbps (again, with 'ping' times of only a bit above 100 msec).

Obviously, I'm really impressed with Kyocera and Verizon's EV-DO speed. I'm equally impressed with the power consumption of the Kyocera KPC650; I haven't done detailed battery life benchmarks, but I'm getting roughly the same run-times with EV-DO turned on as with Wi-Fi enabled, and much better battery life compared to with the Sprint 1xRTT card. Glitches? Only a few. When I rebooted my Windows laptop for the first time after installing the software, with the Kyocera KPC650 in the PC Card slot, I got a cryptic error message that has never reappeared. Occasionally, when the system comes out of standby the card isn't recognized even though it's powered on; a quick eject-and-reinsert fixes that hiccup. There's the NationalAccess-vs-BroadbandAccess identification confusion I've already mentioned. And every once in a rare while the network connection spontaneously disconnects. All in all, pretty darn good, I must say.

Oh, and the 'addictive' part of this blog entry's title? Tuesday morning as I was headed north through New Hampshire, I pulled into a rest stop and did a quick email dump before I entered the White Mountains region (where I correctly predicted I'd lose Verizon coverage). I couldn't figure out why the download was taking so long….until I realized I was in an 1xRTT coverage area. The service that had suited me just fine for two years was, after one week with its successor, no longer palatable.

I'm sold.