Sprint outlines EV-DO mobile data path

CHICAGO--

Capping recent speculation that it was nearing a decision, Sprint announced at Supercomm 2004 this week that it will deploy CDMA 1X EV-DO as the next step in its nationwide mobile data evolution, with the potential to upgrade to EV-DO Release A or EV-DV technology in the next two to three years.

While Sprint has long considered EV-DV as a potential next phase in its data strategy, the company also never ruled out deploying EV-DO, said Oliver Valente, vice president of technology development at Sprint's networks services division.

"We had always mentioned that we had the flexibility to deploy EV-DO first if competition and market demand necessitated it," Valente said, without referring specifically to the fact that competitor Verizon Wireless has begun a national EV-DO deployment. Still, many vendors and analysts have suggested in recent months that Sprint, in light of Verizon's plans, was re-assessing it previous idea of waiting for EV-DV, which likely will not be commercially viable until sometime in 2006.

Cingular Wireless also recently applied further competitive pressure. After announcing recently that it would test UMTS and HSDPA technology in Atlanta this summer, that carrier confirmed this week that it would deploy those technologies commercially next year.

Paul Reddick, vice president of business development at Sprint, added that Sprint also was driven to its EV-DO decision by the fact that its existing 1X RTT data network has posted significant usage in the last year. During 2003, the carrier recorded 20 million ringtone and screansaver downloads, and 5 million game downloads. Since just the third quarter last year, photo sharing via camera phone has grown 37%, Reddick said.

Valente declined to say which Sprint markets would get EV-DO first, but he said the technology will be available in select markets in the second half of 2004, and in the majority of large metropolitan markets next year. The carrier will use existing vendors Lucent Technologies, Nortel, Samsung and Motorola for the roll out. The deployment cost is covered in a $1 billion network investment commitment that Sprint discussed in it 2004 guidance earlier this year.

That $1 billion also will cover a future upgrade to either EV-DO Release A or EV-DV in the 2006 to 2007 timeframe, Valente said, adding that Sprint is still evaluating the potential of both technologiesm and has yet to make a decision.

The EV-DO deployment plan could be seen as something of a missed opportunity for Flarion Technologies and other providers of so-called 3G alternative technologies. Sprint confirmed it had been evaluating Flarion's solution as an alternative to EV-DO or EV-DV, but Valente said, "Sprint is not deploying Flarion. There were certainly attractive aspects to the technology, but we had some concerns about timing and equipment availability."

Valente also commented on Cingular's plan to eventually deploy HSDPA technology, which could support speeds in the neighborhood of 10 Mb/s, or more than four times the bandwidth of EV-DO. "HSDPA plans are aspirational more than they are realistic," he said, suggesting that equipment and handsets supporting the technology will not be available in commercial volumes anytime soon.