Sprint unmoved by EV-DO movement... so far

ATLANTA--

Sprint still is looking at deploying CDMA 1X EV-DV for its next mobile data network upgrade, despite the momentum EV-DO has gathered behind Verizon Wireless' planned national expansion of EV-DO. However, following Verizon's announcement this week at Wireless 2004 in which it named EV-DO vendors, a Sprint official also said the carrier won't rule out a possible shift to EV-DO.

"We like EV-DV because it's more spectrum efficient, allowing us to do voice and data on the same channel," said Camerom Rejali, vice president of product management and development at Sprint Business Solutions. "We also believe it allows better quality-of-service management."

However, Rejali said the carrier is keeping an eye on Verizon's expansion project. "Given what Verizon has done, we're looking at EV-DO," he said. "Now that it's going to happen, we'll be looking at what our customers say about it, and how soon they want those speeds."

Rejali pointed out that any national network upgrade project beginning now would take about two years, regardless. On the standards front, EV-DV Release C was approved last year, and the more marketable EV-DV Release D was approved just last month. Most industry watchers believe the EV-DV market will not be viable until late 2005 or 2006 as new handsets become broadly available.

Rejali also said that network speed is only one of several customer requirements for mobile data, and probably not the most important one. "Speed isn't as significant without coverage. Speed at a higher price might not be worth it," he said.

While Sprint remains patient about its next mobile data network move, it will offer more remote data access flexibility to its customers. In the third quarter of this year, the carrier will offer a remote networking service that packages dial-up, mobile data and Wi-Fi, Rejali said. "We don't care which one they use because our company has a holistic wireline and wireless approach. We're looking at different pricing structures now for how to do this."

Also at the show, Sprint announced a behind-the-firewall enterprise wireless e-mail solution for corporate IT managers who want more control of the corporate e-mail access environment. The Sprint PCS Business Connection Enterprise Edition Server Solution is a result of the carrier's ongoing work with server software developer Seven.