Verizon Updates Entire Network to EV-DO Rev. A

[pgreenbe305]

This is news: I've cut and pasted for simplicity, but the source is mobileburn.com (http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?I...source=SIDEBAR). Here's a big question (sorry, I'm not as tech savvy as most of you): Do we have to do anything to take adavantage of this, like an update, or call, or should it start picking up automatically? Or should the first question be: Can a Motorola Q with the latest firmware even pickup this faster EVDO?

Verizon Wireless has announced today that the entirety of its EV-DO high-speed data network has been upgraded to the Revision A standard. EV-DO Rev. A is an upgrade to the original standard that brings faster upload and download speeds to wireless devices.
Verizon claims that its EV-DO Rev. A network will provide up to 1.4 megabits per second downlink and 600 kilobits per second uplink speeds, meaning a 1MB file will take approximately eight seconds to download. Real world speeds will differ from these figures though.
Verizon Wireless currently offers the USB720 wireless modem, V740 ExpressCard, AirCard 595, and PC5750 PC Cards that can utilize the higher speeds of EV-DO Rev. A network.

[Pony99CA]

My understanding is that Rev. A requires new hardware, so the current Q won't take advantage of the speed.

Steve

P.S. Your subject is a bit misleading. According to your post, Verizon didn't update it's entire network to Rev. A; it updated the existing EV-DO part.

[pgreenbe305]

Originally Posted by Pony99CA

My understanding is that Rev. A requires new hardware, so the current Q won't take advantage of the speed.

Steve

P.S. Your subject is a bit misleading. According to your post, Verizon didn't update it's entire network to Rev. A; it updated the existing EV-DO part.

I just realized that it could have been a little misleading- it's a good thing I had copy & pasted the ENTIRE headline from the original source.

Thanks for the heads up!

[Benso87]

My Q has always had the "EV" symbol on the home screen. My RAZR did since the day I got it last summer, too. I thougt the article was pretty much just saying the EVDO we already had was faster now or something.

[Pony99CA]

Originally Posted by Benso87

My Q has always had the "EV" symbol on the home screen. My RAZR did since the day I got it last summer, too. I thougt the article was pretty much just saying the EVDO we already had was faster now or something.

Yes, the Q has been EV-DO capable since Day 1, but that's EV-DO Rev. 0. EV-DO Rev. A is faster, but, as I said, my understanding is that it requires new hardware to take advantage of the higher speed. (Why else would Verizon have released new EV-DO laptop cards if you could just update the drivers and/or firmware of their older EV-DO cards?)

If that's correct, it means there won't be a firmware update for the Q to get Rev. A speeds.

Read the Wikipedia EV-DO article to find out more about the differences.

Steve