********** Should you subscribe to Verizon EVDO broadband? *******************
- Faster and lower cost ($60/month) than satellite surfing. Verizon does NOT have to be your cell phone provider. EVDO is more expensive than most DSL services.
- Verizon limits your data downloads to 6GBytes per month at this time. 6 GBytes should be plenty unless you video or game a lot. My guess is that Verizon will start allowing unlimited surfing off-hours sometime in 2009 or 2010, similar to unlimited cell phone communication provided by most telecoms during off-hours.
- Cingular (AT&T), T-Mobile, Sprint, and others provide EVDO/3G high speed service, but have much less US coverage. Some might still not limit their data traffic.
- Verizon EVDO is available in about of the US as of May 2008.
- 2 year Verizon contract is virtually required. Termination fee = $175 - $5/month of usage, thus termination in 1 year = $115. A one year contract is available from other web sites, but then the Rev-A EVDO modem is very expensive and you must pay $35 for modem activation.
- Can get surf with a USB modem (USB720 is a good and is free on Verizon web site) or smart phone (some are free on Verizon web site, but you will also need a $40 office kit). You might be able to get an older Rev -0 modem at low cost on the internet since Rev-0 max rate about of the Rev A.
- You can get a good map of the cell towers and antennas near you at
www.antennasearch.com It seems to require a full street address, not just city and state.
****** Things to know if you subscribe to Verizon EVDO *******
- Data rates vary with signal strength, which varies with your distance to the provider, amount of foliage, amount of rain, thickness of building walls, hills in the way, etc. There are similar reduction in data rates with WiFi, WiMax, and DSL. Verizon claims EVDO download speeds of 600-1400 Kbits/sec. (70-160 KBYTES/sec.)
- The USB720 modem can plug directly into a single USB computer port, but the modem provides better signal reception and thus data transmission rate if you use the Y USB cable provided which should allow the modem to draw more power from your computer. Check your signal strength with and without the adapter to see if it helps.
- Make absolutely sure you do not download more than 6GByte/month. Click on Usage to check how much the modem has downloaded thus far in the month. Verizon charges an incredible $490 per GBytes if you download more than 6G Bytes/month. Based on my experience on exceeding monthly cell phone minutes I doubt that Verizon will announce any overages before your bill hits.
- Use F4 to toggle the EVDO service off and on.
- The only indication of the type of connection being used is near the bottom of the Access Manager: Broadband/NationalAccess = fast/slow. A graph of instantaneous data rate is also available in Tools/Statistics.
- A USB720 modem can be used on multiple computers. You can also concurrently access the internet with multiple Windows computers with "Internet Connection Sharing" via an Ethernet crossover cable or WiFi. Example link for ICS details
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/ics_xp
- If you move to a new location (as we do all of the time while RVing) you apparently should use the Tools/Wizard to optimize the new configuration.
- Help/About shows two signal strengths: 1xRTT (slow) and 1xEVDO (fast). Numbers above 100db are fairly weak and have slow data rates. You might not get any reception if signals are greater than 110db. Signal levels below 75db are great. Verizon invisibly and continuously switches between fast and slow connections without informing the user.
- The Verizon web site allows you to order an external antenna with a short 10' cable, which helps some. When using their small external antenna 2.5 miles from a cell tower I get 100db signal and 400 KBits/sec. I am ordering for a $75 yagi external antenna which should improve the signal strength by 15 to 20 db (100 db -> 80 db) which might result in 1,000 Kbits/sec. Note: a short 16" yagi antenna is sufficient for 1900 MHz EVDO signals, but if traveling, you will probably want to buy a longer antenna so as to also receive 850MHz 1xRTT and cell phone signals.
- Link how to get faster EDVO access:
http://www.sprintbroadband.com/speed_guide.html
- Should be able to use Verizon EVDO to get ultra-low cost VoIP telephone service from Skype, etc. Such service is not possible with communication services with long delays (satellites are 22,000 miles above the Earth). The EVDO Rev-A greatly reduced latency problems, hopefully enough for VoIP service. Link:
http://www.evdoinfo.com/content/view/138/63/
- Free web accelerator software greatly increases effective data rates. I use Google Accelerator
- Technical details on EVDO, such as packet data rates, are at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evdo
Posted May 4 2008 Updated versions of this file will be posted on one of my web sites
www.skyaid.org/rv/VerizonEVDO
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