Verizon Wireless' Plans: Onward and, UMB, Upward
January 11, 2007, 5:39 PM
Scott Fulton, BetaNews: For a lot of mobile broadband users, myself included, it was Verizon Wireless that introduced us to Internet use that didn't require hotspots. But it's not quite a year later, and my EV-DO technology has already been superseded - in fact, twice, but not necessarily in a way that I'd notice. While EV-DO has evolved (that's actually what the "EV" stands for, "evolutionary"), it takes time for the nation's still-incomplete wireless broadband data networks to catch up.
Deployment takes time, but now Verizon is at a point where it has something far more capable, at least theoretically, that's worth deploying: EV-DO Rev. C, which has been re-dubbed Ultra-Mobile Broadband (UMB). Our Sharon Fisher has been looking into mobile broadband standards for us this week, and has some information for us now on UMB and Verizon's plans for it. Sharon?
Sharon Fisher, BetaNews Senior CES Analyst: Scott, we talked yesterday about Sprint Nextel and WiMAX, but for a good loong while, WiMAX won't be the only game in town. The two existing cell phone standards - GSM and CDMA - are also getting their data communications capabilities beefed up.
CDMA, which as Gartner's Ken Dulaney told us earlier in the week uses (and pays for) Qualcomm technology, is what Verizon Wireless has been using. And a CDMA technology is being developed that uses the same orthogonal frequency division multiplexing technology that WiMAX uses. That had been called CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision C, but Verizon is now calling it Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB). I can't say I blame them. Incidentally, EV-DO stands for "Evolution-Data Optimized."
Scott Fulton: It always seems as though these abbreviations are being designed by committees that can't make clear-cut decisions. Although I did like the sound of "ee-vee-dee-oh," and could hear it in my mind sung by Ronny and the Daytonas.
Sharon Fisher: In terms of deployment, UMB is somewhat behind WiMAX, which as we told you is starting trials later this year. The UMB standard will be complete next year, and commercial availability is expected in 2009.
The big advantage that UMB has over WiMAX is the "M" part, said Ken Rehbehn, an analyst with Current Analysis. While WiMAX is a mobile technology – meaning you can use it out in the world, it is "fixed mobile," which sounds like a contradiction in terms but actually it means you're mobile, but not moving very fast. You might be walking, but you're not in a car or a train or something. WiMAX isn't as good as traditional cellular phone service – and, by extension, UMB – at catching up with you if you're moving quickly, he said. So WiMAX is faster for fixed mobile but not as suitable for mobility, he said.
UMB is also much faster than the existing CDMA Rev A EDGE data specification, which can transmit data at 450-800 Kbps. Rev B, due next year, transmits data at 46.5 Mbps, while UMB could transmit data as fast as 280 Mpbs.
Verizon said that as of December it had 56.7 million customers of its EV-DO service, which it launched in January 2004, and that its network reaches more than 255 million Americans. In fact, it's even possible that I could use it here in Idaho; while they don't list Boise as a metropolitan area they support, their map is the right color to indicate support for it here.
The thing is, according to Rehbehn, a lot of the technology on this level doesn't necessarily matter much to users. If you've got a CDMA phone and you call someone on a GSM phone, they're still going to be able to communicate with each other. This is really a matter of the various companies betting on which technology is going to be dominant – because, chances are, he said, all three of them will co-exist.
Oh, and in an amusing side note to all this, the big concert venue in St. Louis changed its name last year from the UMB Bank Pavilion to the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre. I guess we'll have to see whether next year it becomes the Sprint Nextel WiMAX Centre.
Scott Fulton: Thank you, Sharon Fisher, reporting for us live from the Boise State Broncos Evolutionary-Heartbreak Epitomized complex.
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