I’m returning my Cingular card

You won't be able to use your EVDO card in Europe, while you could use the Cingular card.

Speaking of which, Sprint's EV-DO is a bit faster. I was in Redmond last week and used it instead of the hotel Wi-Fi in the Fairfield down the street from Microsoft. (Verizon works about as well--1.5mbit is advertised, I believe, but Sprint covers some areas Verizon considers too small to touch and has a better backhaul than Verizon at most of their towers.)

Cingular's card is generally limited by the speed of EDGE, which maxes out around 200kbps, while Sprint claims to max out around 2mbit. I've still got my EDGE card for travelling around outside the US, but EV-DO is nearly good enough for me to cancel my connection at home.

Which card did you buy from Cingular? I've been looking into getting one myself, and they offer four in my area:

- Sony Ericsson GC83 (Refurb)
- Option Globetrotter Combo PC Card Modem
- Sierra Wireless Aircard 860 PC Modem
- Novatel U730

Also, are you running on the EDGE network?

Curiously, I'm interested in which EVDO card you procure from Verizon. As a customer of theirs with National Access with my Blackberry, I'd like to hear more about what the EVDO speed is like, specifically with which card since they have three you can choose from.

If you're going to Verizon, why not go with the Treo 700? You can tether it to your laptop/tablet and use it as an access point for your computer and it's a half-decent PDA in its own right. The PDAnet software that lets you do this is supposed to be supporting bluetooth soon, but it works fine over USB now.

"I didn’t realize just how big a difference in speed it is, but it’s dramatic."

Should we call that oxymoronic or should we assume you were clueless?

And to think that you've been ranting and raving about your Cingular card for weeks now.

I already pointed this out before, but I'll do it again. Rob already knows who I work for, but in any case:

Sprint EVDO coverage is larger than Verizon due to nation-wide rollout versus Verizon's market by market strategy. Speed wise differentiates on who is on the base station and how much the base station can support. The more people with DO cards, the slower you're going to get in speeds.

Cingular runs EDGE cards, but their HSDPA network can rock EVDO in speed big time. Both in real and theoretical. Unfortunately, the HSDPA networks are not as supported currently. Seattle is a HSDPA launch market though.

Personally, for overall EVDO, if you hang around mainly metro/airport areas domestically, I would go with Verizon or Sprint. My personal preference is Verizon. I wouldn't touch a Treo 700 due to the new tethering policies and if you use third party software to bypass the tethering policies, Verizon will cancel your account. Treo 700 has BT crippled for a reason.

In any case, Rob.. let me know if you need me to fill in more details. I'm currently working on prepping for EVDO revA rollout schedules.

Robert - do you think it might have to do with the HSDPA rollout? As I recall, you said you got a Cingular HSDPA card, which would fallback to EDGE or GPRS speeds if HSDPA isn't yet deployed in the market you are visiting. I think Cingular hasn't yet rolled out HSDPA for all markets as yet, which would account for the speed difference you are seeing. HSDPA should be on a par (or even somewhat faster) than EV-DO.

How many times have I told you that Sprint and EVDO is a better option :)

I wouldn't buy a PC card though. The plans are too expensive. $15/month for EVDO on a phone. And at least with PPC-6700 like mine, you can tether via bluetooth.

Brandon, where are you seeing this $15/month? The only thing I can find from Sprint is $25 a month and it has a traffic cap (though I can't seem to find out just how many MB a month you are allowed).

Cingular is a horrid company and service anyway. Verizon is the only company I've found that has the right service and customer ethics, so it's no surprise the Verizon one is better.

I have used the EVDo card from Verizon for 6 months. Remeber NOT TO INSTALL the Venturi-Software piece, it is an accelerator that messes up VPN connections, if you accidently install it, disable it otherwise you will be miserbale.

Good resource for information.

http://www.evdoforums.com/

How are you going to return the card? Yeah they might have a 30 day return policy on *the card* but what about the service contract?

Do you get anything else than the high speed card and a data contract? Do you get a phone number? A VoIP phone number? Course that would take away from their voice billing.

why don't you say you like the Verizon EVDO card in a Zlio?

http://www.zlio.com/

>>>How are you going to return the card? Yeah they might have a 30 day return policy on *the card* but what about the service contract?
________
I used to do tech support for AT&T Wireless before Cingular bought them and messed everything up. Now that I've established myself as an expert (naivety aside :) )... All contract cell phone and wireless service (i.e. GSM, not WiFi) providers are requird by law to provide a 30-day grace period known as Buyers Remorse. As long as the company receives notification of cancellation and the equipment back within 30 days, the customer isn't responsible for any charges, fees, taxes, plans, equipment, etc except for damages. As long as Scoble does this within 30 days, he won't be liable for charges unless he breaks the phone.

... Of course if he doesn't make these requirements in 30 days he'll be responsible for an ETF / Early Termination Fee, which can range from $125 to $800 depending on provider and service plan.

For a supposed geek I would think you would have done the research before making your decision. And you work for who, again?

Heh. again. You CANNOT COMPARE Cingular to Verizon. No matter if they're called "Aircards" nor if they're made by "Sierra Wireless".

That's like comparing the Motorola RAZR V3 (Cingular) with the Motorola RAZR V3C (Verizon). Totally different technologies, same brand, same product line.

I'm going to laugh my butt off when every one of the people that have told Rob to tether get busted on their own accounts for tethering with EVDO. I know for sure that Sprint doesn't allow DO tethering. Verizon doesn't either. Verizon goes through great length to disable Bluetooth tethering also.

Ben - Sprint doesn't block tethering on the PPC-6700. There are rumors that they will on future phones, but nothing yet.

Alex - I'm talking about their phone Power Vision plans. They're all $15/month for unlimited data. They don't have any other plans. You must be looking at their PC card plans which are more expensive (comparable to Verizon).

Brandon - The only reason Sprint isn't blocking the PPC-6700 is because there isn't a Modem NAI. With the current block of the PPC-6600 to EVDO, I'm not exactly sure why you'd shell out for the PPC-6700 since it's rather expensive.

In actuality, the tethering plans aren't rumors. They're in effect as of the 1st of this month.

There is a difference to blocking and not allowing, just because a service isn't blocked doesn't mean it is allowed.

The PPC-6600 doesn't have DO support because the project was scrapped. The PPC-6700 is allowed to tether only because it doesn't have the Modem NAI support to block. Confusing but that's the way the current policies are looking. I also chalk it up to some management types trying to squeeze every last penny out of consumers.

Of course, it doesn't effect my corporation since we work on infrastructure so we have certain things unlocked but consumers are hammered on these types of things.

I purchased EvDO with Verizon last month and have decided to cancel my T-Mobile hotspot and home DSL connection. Outgoing is limited to about 112kbs, which makes uploads noticeably slower, but otherwise, it's just about as fast as basic DSL.

And it works great with my Powerbook since Apple has started shipping drivers in Tiger for newer EvDO cards as they are released, such as the Kyocera KPC650.

I can also turn my Powerbook into a EvDO Wi-Fi "base station" using the internet sharing features in OS X and built-in Airport card. My powerbook shows up as a infrastructure wireless network, which anyone can join (unless I turn on WPA) and connect to the net though my EvDO connection. Comes in handy for meetings in off-site locations or areas without Wi-Fi access.

Ben - All I know is my 6700 is the best phone I've ever owned (I had a 6600 before, and a Treo 600 before that). And I have never had a problem using bluetooth DUN from my tablet (don't even need to use WModem - which Sprint provides on the phone for tethering).

Here's an interesting post comparing Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular's HSDPA...

http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.ph...

Looks like Sprint is the obvious choice.

Heh.

I can tell you from a CDMA perspective, your "obvious" choice is skewed data. Verizon has had better numbers based on a few facts, but one is the very simple one that they operate in the 800Mhz range versus Sprint's 1.9Ghz. It makes a huge difference in speeds. The only advantage that Sprint has on Verizon is in coverage area. Also, the data that you quote doesn't mention if they're in an airport area (more data traffic, movement, and interference).

When it comes to HSDPA, it's limited to markets but the speeds are vastly outnumbering any CDMA technology because it uses 5Mhz of spectrum versus the current EVDO of 1.25Mhz of spectrum. If you're looking for speed, go with HSDPA, especially since there is no current evolutionary path for EVDO to move towards. This is another reason why Sprint and Verizon are looking at WiMax.

I've been playing with DO since it came out in the labs and been testing it in both lab and customer markets with the Merlin cards as well as Aircards and a vast number of phones. So from professional experience, I can say that while you might say "Sprint is the obvious choice..." the numbers I have show otherwise dependent on what you're looking for.

Can anyone help me decide on which way to go for internet service. I live in the Seattle area, Snohomish County, and there is no cable service or DSL. We have been testing a Cingular aircard, but it sure seems slower than our previous cable service. I have read that Seattle has what you call HSDPA, but I only get 3 bars on my cingular dialog box when I connect. Is anyone saying anything is faster in this area? (Seattle) Thanks for any help - Marcia

So before you go and trade in that cingular card you may want to read the contract of both.
I was booted off the Verizon service due to a breach of contract.
Verizon limits the amount of gb that you are able to down load and upload in any given month. Verizon makes it very clear that you are not permitted to do any live streaming! This is why there service is so much faster, Cingular does not mind if you do live streaming, you may be thinking porn at this point, But keep in mind that live news and CNN is also streaming as is web caming with friends.
Don't take my word for it look it up. You can do like I did just go over the allowed usage and get booted off for breach of contract and then just get pissed when they hand you a bill for $175 for cancellation.
Here is another site with pissed off people such as myself.
www.techdirt.com/articles/20060726/1926251.shtml

I do have a cingular air card but I still use Verizon for my two cell phones!