Sprint (News - Alert) plans to start rolling out next-generation technology known as EV-DO Revision A (Rev A) onto its Sprint Power Vision mobile broadband network in the fourth quarter of 2006 to a footprint of 200 million people, the nation’s third-largest cellular operator announced on Thursday.

 

Earlier this year at the CTIA Wireless (News - Alert) show, Sprint said the mobile broadband upgrade, which boasts faster average download speeds of 450-800 kbps and average upload speeds of 300-400 kbps, wouldn’t be available until the first quarter of 2007. The Sprint Power Vision was announced with great fanfare last October.

 

“By accelerating our EV-DO Revision A deployment, we are expanding the number of ways our customers can use the service to make their digital life simple, instant and productive,” said Len Lauer, Sprint's chief operating officer.

 

Because the newer technology boosts upload speeds fivefold higher than current rates, it is ideally suited for richer applications such as high-speed video telephony, music on-demand, video messaging and large file uploads. Last week Sprint successfully completed the first Rev A data connection over the Sprint Power Vision network in San Diego. This development combined with a series of other positive performance tests drove the decision to speed up the deployment plan.

 

The Rev A upgrade is initially expected to reach coverage of more than 40 million people by year-end. Sprint's Power Vision network will be completely upgraded to the faster Rev A by the third quarter of 2007.

 

Sprint is also still expected to announce its decision on a technology platform to deploy its next-generation network in the 2.5GHz spectrum. As previously reported, the cellular operator has been evaluating numerous technology options including Flash-OFDM, TD-CDMA and WiMAX.

 

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Robert Liu is Executive Editor at TMCnet. Previously, he was Executive Editor at Jupitermedia and has also written for CNN, A&E, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. For more articles, please visit Robert Liu's columnist page.

Mobile Telephony