CES 2008: Sprint's Speed, Thankfully Fixed

Back at NAB 2007, the last time I was in Las Vegas, I grumbled about the fact that I was only able to tune into the molasses-slow 1xRTT variant of Sprint’s CDMA cellular data service from my hotel, using an EV-DO Rev. A data card connected to Linksys’ WRT54G3G-ST cellular router. Judging from the chronologically-ordered benchmarking snapshots below that I snagged after midnight last night from that same hotel, the coverage problem’s been solved, at least after-hours:

Granted, at nearly 1:00 AM PST, the cellular network is probably being lightly used versus its mid-day peak (although this is Las Vegas…some folks are just getting going at 1AM). As Waav pointed out to me last April, CDMA networks auto-throttle from EV-DO back to 1xRTT under heavy voice traffic conditions, so I’ll be curious to see how my connection speeds hold up throught the next few days, and at various times of day.

My upcoming February 7 issue cover story will discuss the cellular network resource prioritization of voice at the expense of other services such as unicast video. It’ll also mention Sprint’s next-generation Xohm WiMAX unified-service network, which the company is heavily promoting here at the show, with a more indepth discussion of WiMAX (and Xohm) in my follow-up March 6 part-two feature article.