Victor R. Blake

I recently relocated and needed to purchase a new phone and cellular service. The operator I used in the past did not have good coverage in the area I wanted to live in. I had been using the Audiovox PPC-6700 which is an outstanding cellular phone with either CDMA based EV-DO or GSM based HSDPA data service support and WiFi. It did have Windows Mobile and I used that to run Skype (over EV-DO and WiFi) as well as Sling Box Mobile.

In my search for a new phone I elected to purchase the Motorola Q. It had the comfortable form factor of the Blackberry, but the features of Windows Mobile. With rebates it was also a $100 purchase instead of the $300 it would have cost to purchase another PPC-6700 for Verizon’s network. The only feature the Q was lacking that I would like to have had was WiFi.

Verizon offers an unlimited data service on the phone that I purchased with my contract. They also offer a separate EV-DO data card for use with computers. At the time that I purchased the phone I also asked about data service through the phone. Verizon offered a $15 per month add –on feature for unlimited data via a USB cable to the phone. For $15/month I couldn’t turn it down. In the past I paid as much as $59/month for T-Mobile just for WiFi coverage at Starbucks while traveling. The $15/month from Verizon would ostensibly give me access everywhere. To my great surprise, it has worked amazingly well.

Beginning in November of 2005, I have used Verizon’s cell phone service and EV-DO broadband Internet access service. I have used the service exclusively on the Motorola Q phone.

Technically Enhanced Voice – Data Optimized (EV-DO) is a wireless data transport technology that can be used to carry voice, private data networks, and of course Broadband Internet service. As colloquially used, EV-DO is a reference to the Broadband Internet Service over that proper named technology.

The EV-DO based Internet service is offered three ways:
1. As a stand alone EV-DO broadband data service typically selling for $79 per month and implemented with a PCMICA wireless EV-DO card.
2. As a bundled service with the same card and billing integrated into a cellular phone package, with a multi-service discount.
3. As an ad-on service to EV-DO capable phones. With this service, a laptop connects to an EV-DO phone via a USB to min-USB cable. The service is configured using Windows Dial-Up Networking adapter and treating the EV-DO phone as a USB modem. Unlimited data use of that service is $15/month bundled with most cellular voice service plans over $79 per month.

During the last three months I have regularly used the service for Internet access for web searches, access to vendor sites to download documents, and most regularly for email including large attachments. I have used the service by itself and also used the service while also simultaneously making voice calls.

The most problematic use of the service is running broadband Internet service and voice simultaneously in more rural areas. During such times the apparent function of the phone is to prefer the data service and block outgoing or incoming calls. However, if I am on a voice call and attempt an outbound data call, it will instead fail the data call. It might be best to characterize the service, under poor coverage conditions, as preferring the call made first in time (First In First Out). In fact it does behave like a FIFO queue. For example, if I am on a data “call” and attempt an outbound voice call that fails, it will later place that voice call immediately after the data session is closed. The first time it happened it surprised me because I thought the phone dialed by itself or that I accidentally activated the voice instruction based calling options.

As a replacement service for dial-up networking, the service is more than adequate and highly cost effective. At $15/month it is cheaper than a phone line and cheaper than most dial-up services (although some go for under $10 per month). A cost conscious consumer could easily use it as a substitute for broadband service. It is more than adequate for regular use. I have been using the service for approximately 4-8 hours per day. I end up using it at all times expect for when physically traveling or when on voice conference calls.

In addition to my “regular” use of the service, I conducted some more extensive use of the service today. During the two hours I have:
1. watched approximately 45 minutes of MPEG4 video.
2. Downloaded a 46.2MB MPEG4 video
3. Voice over IP over the top calling service using AOL’s AIM Phoneline service for inbound calling.
4. Played short form video (from vidmeter.com) from Youtube, myspace, et. al. – several videos sequentially over ½ hour or so
5. Played streaming radio from AOL Radio. In particular I played an XM Radio rebroadcast over AOL Radio.

I also conducted some basic investigating of the service. With traceroute I can see that Verizon Wireless is using ALTER.NET – aka UUnet – aka Verizon Business Internet backbone for transit. Verizon Business and Qwest still clearly have capacity issues between their networks.

Typically the service connects at approximately 234kbps. During the 46.2MB download, the download average 60.4KB/second. That is 483kbps. So clearly the 234kbps is not correct. And that was from a web site in the UK!

When tested against Speakeasy (www.speakeasy.com) with the Washington, D.C. server, while in the Northern Virginia area, the download performance averaged 1036kbps (about 1Mbps) and upload at 120kbps. When tested against speedtest.net, the measurements were similar with download average of 933kbps and upload of 122kbps. Latency on speedtest averaged 231ms. Latency on the Verizon EV-DO network is typically quite high compared to PON or xDSL.. With toast.net the speed was measured at 918kbps for download.

All of my investigations were conducted from a single 800Mhz Pentium IIIm with 256MB RAM (a 6 ½ year old computer). It is possible to provide a networked service using either Microsoft Windows XP/Vista software, or via third party (so called EV-DO routers) routers designed specifically to share broadband wireless (cellular based) services. D-Link and Kyocera both sell such products.

Like all services (mobile, fixed wireless, and fixed wireline) the quality of the service, and even the traffic engineering policies, may vary by region and most particularly by varying patterns of use, interference, and contention. My experiences may not be typical and there is no way to compare a full spectrum of performance without a significant effort at distributed data collection among a wide population of subscribers, spread out geographically, and conducted over a long period of time.

Although I have been extremely pleased with the service and expect to continue to use it, I still plan on obtaining a fixed broadband service. The only disadvantage to the service solution I am using is that I must connect a USB cable to my cell phone and leave it tethered. While this inconvenience may be worth the cost savings for travel, I still prefer the convenience of a completely un-tethered solution for home and office work conditions. This problem could be alleviated if Verizon supported a Bluetooth based link. Although I have not tested it, I have heard that some EV-DO based cell phones do support Bluetooth based broadband access. The Motorola Q phone I am using does have Bluetooth, but does not (yet ?) support broadband Internet over that interface. According to Verizon:

“*The Motorola Q Black supports Bluetooth Profiles for wireless headsets, hands-free devices, car kits, stereo headsets, keyboards, personal area networks, desktop synchronization, object exchange (OBEX), file transfer (FTP), and more. Accessories sold separately. “ (http://http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=2303&cm_re=Global-_-Phones%20%26%20Accessories-_-PDAs%20and%20SmartPhones%20Motorola%20Q)
The problem could easily be solved through the use of an EV-DO router.

In summary Verizon’s EV-DO wireless broadband data (Internet) service is a very high quality service for an extremely reasonable cost. It cost lest than most cable and DSL “lite” or “economy” products and offers significantly higher bandwidth. Most certainly it offers mobility that is not available on fixed wireline networks. The fact that the same service works on the cell phone itself or to a connected PC, allows the subscriber to take their service with them as well as use it as a substitute for fixed broadband.

Victor Blake

February 27,2007

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