When EVDO Revision A (and soon thereafter Rev B) comes out in Q3 2007, there will be a full blown skirmish between Cell operators and the Satellite Internet industry for available consumer and business internet accounts. The territories they are trying to claim are the areas where concentration of homes and business is great enough to build out advanced cell service, but not great enough for terrestrial providers like cable and dsl. These suburban and rural areas have historically been the territory for Satellite operators and some adventuresome WiFi businesses.
Current Status:
With the current levels of cell service available (EVDO rev.0), cell operators are taking a fair amount of business away from satellite operators in fringe suburban areas....why?.... younger users who want to stream video, trade music and video, play internet games and not have any limitations on usage. So far, the cell operators are filling the bill for about $50 or so for the "Aircard" and charging about $59 per mo. for high speed internet....well, sort of.
The speeds on most EVDO plans are about 400-800 kbps download and around 200 kbps upload. Much higher speeds are promised when Revisions A and B come in to play later this year and beyond. Latency is around 200-350 ms - 50% lower or more than a satellite connection. This latency allows gaming without too many bumps along the way. For those who have been experiencing oppressive limitations from the satellite operators, it seems like heaven....but for how long?
Some of the providers already have a limit of usage each month and it's pretty restrictive (as low as 4GB per month - lower than the satellite operators are assessing). There is no decent data to report on what happens when the network begins to "load up" with users. I was in Denver's airport during a recent snow storm and the EVDO service was non-existent until you were several miles from the airport.....so it's not perfect, by any means. I personally believe that the cell operators are going to learn the same lessons that satellite internet operators have learned........bandwidth is expensive! You can lure people in with attractive prices and speeds, but when you can't maintain those speeds as the network loads up, you just become another one of those lying, cheating, false advertising no good internet providers that we have too many of already! Just kidding........it's not easy to balance a high speed internet network in this day and time.
Future:
When cell operators build out and offer Rev B. EVDO high speed internet service (about 2 years out), the landscape for service will be incredibly competitive. City, suburban and rural individuals and companies will have a lot of choices and the providers with foresight and innovation will be the one's to survive. It should be good for the consumer!
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