ev-do

Sprint has confirmed with CNET that it's starting to ship 3G-capable femtocells, but only to qualified customers. Like the previous 2G Airave, the Airave Access Point acts as a mini cell tower using your home or office broadband connection to help boost voice and data coverage. The primary difference between the two is that the Airave Access Point supports EV-DO while the older Airave only supports up to CDMA 1x.

Sprint spokesman Mark Elliott did tell us, however, that the Airave Access Point is not actually available for purchase. If you have specific coverage issues in your building, you … Read more

Qualcomm is adding 4G technology to its Gobi laptop modems and expanding its chip offerings that support 3G technologies.

The San Diego-based company announced at CTIA in Las Vegas Tuesday that it will add, for the first time, LTE, or Long Term Evolution 4G technology to the roster of 3G technologies that the Gobi modem supports. 4G technology is expected to offer much greater data throughput than current 3G technologies (see chart below).

Gobi modem technology is significant because it supports more than one type of 3G service. In effect, Gobi allows switching to a different 3G provider in software. The integrated Gobi modem on HP EliteBook business laptops, for example, supports Verizon's EV-DO and AT&T's HSPA 3G services. Before, a user would have to replace the internal modem to switch providers.

And Gobi modems will now be future-proofed by supporting LTE, too. Michael Concannon, senior vice president of connectivity and wireless modules at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, explained how this could play out for PC makers. "A PC supplier, for example, may go with a 3.6 megabit-per-second module on a very low-end laptop, while in the mid-range they may want to go with a 14.4 (Mbps), and at the very high end… Read more

Not even a year after Virgin Mobile introduced Broadband2Go, its pay-as-you-go broadband service, it is now expanding it with even more data while still keeping costs low.

The $60 plan, for example, now offers 5GB, when it was 1GB previously. You now get 1GB for $40, and the 300MB for $20, though you do need to use the data within 30 days. As before, there's a $10 plan that only gives you 100MB that you need to use in 10 days instead.

There are no activation fees, and megabytes can be added as needed. To use it, you can … Read more

ASPEN, Colo.--One thing I love is finding uses for things that perhaps no one has thought of before.

I'd already been on Road Trip 2009 for several days when I arrived in this tony Colorado mountain town known best as a playground for the rich and famous. I was hoping to go for a walk and find something good to eat.

It had been a long day of driving, starting in Colorado Springs, and traveling over Independence Pass, a 12,095 "Top of the Rockies" spot just on the Continental Divide. I had planned to stroll … Read more

The HTC Mogul is about to get fast...real fast. Today, Sprint released a software upgrade that brings an EV-DO Rev. A upgrade to the Windows Mobile smartphone, making it the first such handset in the United States. EV-DO Rev. A is an evolution of EV-DO which boosts download speeds from the 400Kbps-to-700Kbps range to 600Kbps-to-1.4Mbps range, while upload speeds will average about 350Kpbs to 500Kpbs (compared with EV-DO's 50Kpbs to 70Kbps). In short, you're going to get faster Web browsing, e-mail, and downloads--that is, if you're lucky enough to live in a coverage area.

According … Read more

I wrote about Kindle when it was announced, and again when it arrived, but all of that was just warmup. Today I'll be providing a genuine review.

I've had my Kindle for eight days now. I've bought eight books for it (well, seven plus a short story) and read three of them, installed over 90 other free ebooks, spent time browsing the Web, and... I actually read the manual. On the Kindle, naturally.

It's a good thing I ordered mine so quickly, Amazon's web page for Kindle says they're sold out and they don'… Read more

Amazon has released Kindle, its new e-book reader.

[Later update: my Kindle review is online now.]

Newsweek has published a lengthy article about it. CNET's coverage includes a review, a photo gallery, a Crave blog, and a News.com blog. That's plenty of factual coverage.

I won't rehash the basic features of Kindle, but I will try to compare it with the Sony Reader--now in its second generation and Kindle's primary competition. I will also talk about what I see as the strong and weak points of the Kindle design.

Disclaimer: This is all based on … Read more

DIXON, Calif.--I'm sitting on a stairway in the middle of the world's-largest corn maze and blogging the experience. Literally.

I like to say I'm the first to do things, and of course, you never really know if it's true. But I have to say I think the odds that someone else has been blogging inside this maze, which comprises 40 acres of healthy cornfield in this small farming town near Sacramento, are pretty small. But you never know.

I'm doing it thanks to the Verizon EV-DO card I've been using, and the ability … Read more

Starting this month, five Hewlett-Packard business notebooks will be come packaged with Sprint's mobile broadband network.

The HP Compaq 2710p convertible notebook, 6510b, 6910p, 8510p notebooks and 8510w mobile work station, are the first offerings from HP to be eligible for embedded Sprint service. Prices for the five models range between $959 and $2,049. HP says to expect additional models to be added later this year.

The companies will jointly market the notebooks, which will have access to Sprint's 3G EV-DO network beginning sometime in October. Customers who sign up for a one- or two-year service agreement … Read more