Rev. B gains steam...

[SL-10]

Rev. B gains steam

Airvana gearing for operator tests of the CDMA upgrade

By Mike Dano
July 27, 2007 - 1:44 pm EDT

The wireless industry’s incessant march toward faster and better networks appears to be showing no signs of slowing as industry players gear up for increasing interest in CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision B technology, a software upgrade to the Rev. A networks that Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless are in the midst of building out.

“We’re seeing a lot of interest in Rev. B,” said Dave Nowicki, VP of marketing and product management for infrastructure vendor Airvana.

Indeed, Airvana recently announced it completed a successful test of Rev. B technology in its lab, which the company touted as a “major step towards commercialization.”

Airvana also said it will begin operator trials of Rev. B technology in the third quarter of this year, although the company did not name which carriers would be testing the technology. Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Alltel Corp. are the three main CDMA carriers in the United States.

Nowicki said Rev. B is a software upgrade for CDMA networks, much like Rev. A. According to Airvana, Rev. B would initially support peak data speeds of 9.3 megabits per secon on the forward link and 5.4 Mbps on the reverse link using three 1.25 MHz-wide carriers. However, actual speeds for end users likely would be much slower.

It’s unclear whether Sprint Nextel or Verizon Wireless will upgrade their newly minted Rev. A networks to Rev. B; neither Sprint Nextel nor Verizon Wireless has yet introduced a Rev. A-capable handset. Thus, anther full-blown network upgrade may be on the back burner.

Nonetheless, the nation’s carriers struggle daily to outdo each other, and the allure of a faster network may well push them into action.

While there is apparently interest in Rev. B technology, it seems the next step on the CDMA evolution path—Revision C—is still in the far distance.

Perry LaForge of the CDMA Development Group said that, so far, there is little interest in Rev. C, which is also called Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB).

“I don’t hear (interest in) it,” LaForge said.

[Jonathanlc2005]

imagine the mogul doing rev b....

[tmidle8575]

That'd be sweet if the Mogul could do that!

[Dubspoon]

who all really thinks another network build-out will be done withem still completing rev.A and a Wi-Max build-out next?

[Evan702]

That's the thing though. If I've read correctly, this wouldn't be a build-out per sé as was the case when going from Rev. 0 to Rev. A Rev. B is simply a software upgrade. If Sprint wants to hang it's hat on it's "powerful" data services, this seems like a must to me. Rev. C (UMB) would require a (probably expensive) hardware upgrade and thus wouldn't make any sense at this point, but Rev. B seems like a no-brainer. Plus if Q-chat runs as good as has been rumored on Rev. A, it should smoke on Rev. B which offers faster speeds and more importantly, even lower latency. Imagine having Wimax data cards that fall back to Rev. B when Wimax isn't available. Now that would be powerful.

[Fox McCloud]

That's the thing though. If I've read correctly, this wouldn't be a build-out per sé as was the case when going from Rev. 0 to Rev. A Rev. B is simply a software upgrade. If Sprint wants to hang it's hat on it's "powerful" data services, this seems like a must to me. Rev. C (UMB) would require a (probably expensive) hardware upgrade and thus wouldn't make any sense at this point, but Rev. B seems like a no-brainer. Plus if Q-chat runs as good as has been rumored on Rev. A, it should smoke on Rev. B which offers faster speeds and more importantly, even lower latency. Imagine having Wimax data cards that fall back to Rev. B when Wimax isn't available. Now that would be powerful.

Very well stated; I never knew why Sprint didn't invest and push more at Qualcomm (and other companies involved in Rev. B) for the Rev. B upgrade; if it's software only, that means that they could do a software upgrade across their entire network nearly overnight (chances are, probably not, but it'd probably happen VERY quickly if they were interested in deploying it). The sad part is that Sprint hasn't been beefing up it's backhaul to its tower; in rural and low density areas the towers still have only one data-only T1 line (and Sprint keeps 256k for themselves, thus limiting you to 1288k down max...I'd think it'd be the same on the uplink). In large cities, the towers only have two data-only T1 lines (again, Sprint keeps 256k from each line) thus making your max speed 2576k down (and 1800k is the max up, but the highest anyone has seen is a little over 1000k). With EVDO Revision B, the only benefit, I can see (if they bonded 3 channels) would be to increase upload speed and to lower latency (which they claim will make VoIP and gaming very effective).

I'm all for this, and I hope Sprint doesn't blow Rev. B on by in favor of WiMAX....as, well....WiMAX will take forever to trickle on down to the rural areas...where as Rev. B would not....but! Sprint definitely needs to start thinking about increasing their backhaul to each tower; if more than one person is pulling from the same tower in a low-density area; service-quality plummets drastically for both users.

[carcarx]

[QUOTE=Fox McCloud]
I'm all for this, and I hope Sprint doesn't blow Rev. B on by in favor of WiMAX..../QUOTE]

Adoption of Rev B assumes that there's spectrum that's not being highly utilized, as it "gangs"
different RF carriers' data slots as one (inverse multiplexing).

Aside from huge file transfers (the wish to transfer them quickly) and "HD-TV", what application
would need that sort of throughput? (And how much would you be willing to pay for it?)

[mbloof]

IMHO: Given the future buildout/trials of a nationwide WIMAX network, Sprint will be moving data-centric customers to that offering and market its current EVDO services as a slower/lower level of data service.

[Fox McCloud]

I'm all for this, and I hope Sprint doesn't blow Rev. B on by in favor of WiMAX....

Adoption of Rev B assumes that there's spectrum that's not being highly utilized, as it "gangs"
different RF carriers' data slots as one (inverse multiplexing).

Aside from huge file transfers (the wish to transfer them quickly) and "HD-TV", what application
would need that sort of throughput? (And how much would you be willing to pay for it?)

practically any application; if we only "needed" "so much" bandwidth, everyone would be chugging along with 1.5 meg broadband; is that the case? Of course not; we have FiOS with their 50/5 speeds, Paxio with their 1000/10000 speeds, and others that offer speeds in the 6-20 meg range.

I very much doubt WiMAX will have as large of a footprint as EVDO currently has, simply from the fact that it requires many new antennas to be placed on a tower; obviously, this means a lot of money will be allocated towards the project, obviously, and thus, a much slower build-out than EVDO.

Let me put it this way, who says Sprint needs to launch Revision B for higher speeds? As I said before, the only benefit for more speed would be in the upload sector if they didn't increase the backhaul to their towers. Personally, although I'd love to see speeds higher than 1.28 meg in the country and 2.5 meg in the city, I doubt it'll happen any time soon (with EVDO)....now, latency? That's a different story; as it stands, the best most people can get when pinging Google is around 100ms (sometimes you'll run into smooth patches where you get around the mid-70's to mid-80's, but it never lasts). With EVDO Revision B, Sprint could lower the latency on their EVDO connection by a great amount (think hard-wired like latency); this would allow their customers to engage in VoIP, gaming, and other latency-sensitive applications with little to no problems.

I'm pulling for Revision B for the latency first, and the upload increase second...I don't expect Sprint to be be upgrading their backhauls any time soon.

[carcarx]

I'm pulling for Revision B for the latency first, and the upload increase second...I don't expect Sprint to be be upgrading their backhauls any time soon.

And how much money are you willing to pay for decreased latency?

[Fox McCloud]

And how much money are you willing to pay for decreased latency?

I'm not sure I understand why you think there will be higher price-tag involved; if Sprint doesn't use channel bonding, then it won't be an issue; sure, we'll only see the same speeds as Rev. A, but hey, what's more important is that we'll have much lower latency.

[carcarx]

I'm not sure I understand why you think there will be higher price-tag involved; if Sprint doesn't use channel bonding, then it won't be an issue; sure, we'll only see the same speeds as Rev. A, but hey, what's more important is that we'll have much lower latency.

Not "think", it's an industry common practice. You're getting a higher class of service and a higher burst speed. So why shouldn't you pay more?

[Fox McCloud]

didn't you read what I said? I said, they could deploy Revision B, but forget about channel bonding until later....if they didn't do channel bonding, then it'd be EXACTLY like EVDO Revision A (speed-wise), but would have lower latency.

Also, Sprint didn't increase their prices when they went from EVDO (1 meg down and 128k up) to EVDO Revision A (1.28 meg down and 500-600k up in a light area; 2.5 meg down and 700-1000k up in a dense area). The price was $59.99 ($49.99 with SERO) before and after this MAJOR upgrade.....I might also add that this upgrade took quite a bit of cash out of Sprint's pockets; EVDO Revision A required hardware and software upgrades; EVDO Revision B will only require software.

Thus, I really can't see them raising their prices....

[Skyh123]

Well i dont care if they go to rev B C or even Z for that matter as long as i get EVDO REV 0 in my area i would be happy

[Raeg03]

lol, is it me, or does it seem like they are sticking their fingers in too many different project without finishing up current ones first... ie. Rev ) before rev A, rev A before Rev B, rev B before Rev C, wimax before rev A, so on and so forth....

[Fox McCloud]

lol, is it me, or does it seem like they are sticking their fingers in too many different project without finishing up current ones first... ie. Rev ) before rev A, rev A before Rev B, rev B before Rev C, wimax before rev A, so on and so forth....

yup; I agree with you; it would be nice if they would finish of their Revision A deployments first....then, once that's completed, hop onto WiMAX and continue expanding that. Finally, once the second half of 2008 arrives (when Revision B is due out) upgrade the entire Revision A network to Revision B in less than a week and release new firmware for all the Revision A cards so they can take advantage of the higher speeds and/or lower latency.

that'd be a huge plus for Sprint, in my eyes....but I doubt they'll do it.

[Jonathanlc2005]

lol, is it me, or does it seem like they are sticking their fingers in too many different project without finishing up current ones first... ie. Rev ) before rev A, rev A before Rev B, rev B before Rev C, wimax before rev A, so on and so forth....
lol well would you rather see a picture of gary forsee bathing in 100 dollar bills with a rubber ducky? :laughing:

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