Sprint first US carrier with EV-DO Rev A hardware
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Aug 29th 2006 3:03PM
posted Aug 29th 2006 3:03PM
[Via phoneArena]
posted Aug 29th 2006 3:03PM
The percentage of returned gadgets that have nothing wrong with them.
Of the $13.8 billion worth of returned products in 2007, only 5 percent were because gadgets were actually broken, according to a 2008 study.
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Good point, guys - thanks. I've updated the wording to reflect that there is a very limited deployment in place.
Chris
Folks interested in using Sprint EVDO on their Macs should check out this blogpost:
http://evdoinfo.blogspot.com/2006/09/sprint-evdo-and-macs-september-2006.html
Lots more to learn over at http://www.evdoinfo.com and http://www.evdoforums.com
Watch for hot news coming out early next week from Sprint! (wink)
The catch here is the 2-year contract. You are stuck with the device for 2 years, even though you know that in less time than that there will be a hardware change to the network infrastructure that will require a new device. Sprint will cheerfully let you upgrade (after buying a new device) but indenture you to another 2 years of service with a very hefty cancellation fee. If they offered new services that were competitive, they would not need to indenture their customers.
for as much as I rag on Sprint. I have to say that they are really looking like they will have some potential in the future. I don't plan on switching, but maybe they can be enough competition for VZW, and force VZW to drop their data prices.
Not so sad for MacBook Pro users....just use the Dell card -- it works fine.
"Sprint will cheerfully let you upgrade (after buying a new device) but indenture you to another 2 years of service with a very hefty cancellation fee. If they offered new services that were competitive, they would not need to indenture their customers."
If you bother the look up the thing on Sprint's website or on Engadget's phoneArena link, you'll see that:
"The Merlin S720's retail price is $249.99 and costs $99.99 with a two-year contract."
My point is that the 'indenture' thing that you made such a big deal of is easily avoided - just pay retail price. For someone who's willing to pay $60/month for data plan, additional $150 shouldn't be a problem if you don't want to get into the two years contract.
I've been a happy Sprint customer for the last several years, especially with my 25% corp discount and free unlimited (grandfathered) EVDO on my PPC-6700. I don't know about other networks but my family was able to reach me all the time last year when I was working in Houston and we were told to evacuate in preparation for hurricane Rita. My colleagues' T-Mobile and Cingular phones were basically dead. Nobody could ever reached them. They switched carrier soon afterward.
One of the largest issues customers have when they want Verizon or Cingular on their new laptop they purchase at my Best Buy is that they only have an express card slot.
I'd say its at least a 50-50 split on laptops that we carry that even offer a pcmcia slot anymore. Be careful which notebook you pick if you want this type of service.
Franklin-Wireless and Sprint have just released an EVDO card that connects to any USB port. No card slot needed. I'm using it on a MacBook and it works just fine.
850Kbps?! As in 103.76kbytes/sec :|
that's slow... real slow, y2k slow :|
1 byte = 8 bits
1 kilobit = 1000 bits
1 kilobytes = 1024 bytes
850 kilobits x (1000 bits/1 kilobits)= 850 000 bits
=> 850 000 bits x (1 byte/ 8 bits) = 106 250 bytes
=> 106 250 bytes x (1 kilobytes/ 1024 bytes) =~103.76 kilobytes
http://www.speedguide.net/conversion.php
P.S. I have way too much free time...