FYI: Verizon EVDO Rev-A In Montana - Montana Owners Club

Alex Sian · 06-05-2007, 03:49 AM

In case anyone hasn't heard yet, Verizon announced today that they now have EVDO Rev-A networks operational in these areas of Montana:

* Helena, including historic downtown, Carroll College, the State Capitol, Civic Center, Lewis and Clark fairgrounds and North Hills;
* Missoula, including Stevensville, the Bitterroot Valley, the lower Flathead Valley and Big Arm;
* Billings area, including Huntley and East Laurel.

Full press release can be read at:
http://www.evdoforums.com/thread5949.html

jrgwdenner · 06-05-2007, 05:07 AM

Great news, Alex! We don't plan to be in Montana any time soon but it shows that Verizon is busily expanding their network. I'm happy!

sreigle · 06-05-2007, 07:42 AM

Alex, that means the broadband speed is now available in those areas, is that right? And areas without the broadband just have lower speeds, assuming the signal is available, right? I didn't want anyone thinking that if an area does not have rev-A then they don't have a connection. Thanks.

Tom Gina 06 · 06-05-2007, 08:03 AM

I talked to Verizon about this very subject a few months ago. They told me that they were hoping in the next few years to have all their towers upgraded to broadband in the next 2 years. Looks like they are holding up their word that is nice to hear. They may have also signed some different roaming agreements with Altell which took over Cell One (Western Wireless) a year ago as they use the same technoligy. Western Wireless extensively covers the Northwestern US. Interesting to say the least.

rrheik · 06-05-2007, 12:06 PM

Thanks Alex. We have been enjoying our broadband access on our way to Helena, Montana. Our daughter, a medical transcriber, has had great success with the Verizon aircard, enabling her to work on the road with us, so we look forward to using Verizon in Helena. Last year we used dailup NetZero at the rv park, which served its purpose, but we had to go to the office to get internet access, so this summer is going to be great. Verizon is doing a great job, we have had good luck in Lake Havasu, Az and Mesquite, Nv. eventhough it is only national vice broadband there. Thanks again.

barb and bob

Alex Sian · 06-08-2007, 05:09 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by sreigle

Alex, that means the broadband speed is now available in those areas, is that right? And areas without the broadband just have lower speeds, assuming the signal is available, right? I didn't want anyone thinking that if an area does not have rev-A then they don't have a connection. Thanks.

it was a busy week for me. sorry i didnt reply sooner.
actually it means that their fastest broadband speeds should be available as of that release, and yes... areas in and around that do not see the broadband speeds should still get national access (1xrtt) speeds whenever signal is available at all.

Mrs. CountryGuy · 06-09-2007, 03:07 AM

Verizon was just not fast enough for us. SIGHHH

This week we traded in our one Verizon phone for Sprint coverage, and at the same time brought home a Sprint aircard. We have been trying to hold off and wait for Verizon to finally come to Lenawee County, we have been waiting for a LONG LONG time,and time was up. SIGH

We were told that we might have questionable coverage on the Sprint aircard, and were more than pleasantly surprised when we not only got right on line, but found that we are connected to a EVDO tower.

Al pinged a web site via ole direcway (soon to be goneway) and the air card. Air card FOUR times faster.

Feel a bit like a traitor, as we have been with Verizon for many years, and they served us well, well sorta. We never really needed the cell phone in the stick built, so the fact that we could rarely use it here was not much of a factor. Our needs changed, we now need cell coverage here 24/7/365, and Verizon, although promised, just was not showing up for duty.

We got a pretty good deal with Sprint for a family plan and the air card, less than we were paying for 2 cells (one with Sprint, one with Verizon), and ole direcway (goneway).

Reason for a lot of these changes: We did not like paying for services that stayed in the stickbuilt for months while we were out wearing out Tana and Big Butt. Hate double paying!

With the 30 days trial, bring it back if you are not happy, we finally felt free to jump in with the air card.

So, no more land line phone, direcway is going goneway (we were NOT happy with direcway, as anyone who knows us can vividly remember), we have the aircard (will travel, oh, yea!!!

), two functioning cell phones, and we saved some $$ as well.

trukdoc · 06-09-2007, 03:07 PM

Can anyone answer the question of speed difference between an air card or tethering to a cell phone? Is there a difference.

Mrs. CountryGuy · 06-09-2007, 03:25 PM

Rick,

Our cell phone was using old technology, and was very slow, sometimes it would take 30 minutes to open up ONE web page. It was slower than dial up! OUCHIE

This air card is 3 to 4 times faster than our direcway satellite service has been.

No comparison in our case, the air card wins this horse race.

Think it would depend on your cell phone, etc.

richfaa · 06-09-2007, 04:20 PM

Our Verizon aircard is running 576 KBPS here in the South Bend, Ind area and that is about average. We have got faster.

Alex Sian · 06-09-2007, 04:38 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by trukdoc

Can anyone answer the question of speed difference between an air card or tethering to a cell phone? Is there a difference.

very popular site for doing speed tests is broadbandreports.com

they maintain archives that record top speeds by each service.

here are links to sprint and verizon aircard top speeds:

http://www.dslreports.com/archive/spcsdns.net
http://www.dslreports.com/archive/myvzw.com

and here is a link that ranks hundred of speedtests performed using cell phones:

http://www.dslreports.com/mspeed?domains=1

for those not interested in visiting the pages to interpret the results, i'll summarize by saying that on average, dedicated evdo devices are 4-5 times faster than phones are.

the phones processors and data infrastructure simply are not tuned for high speed data. they are set up primarily to be phones.

in addition to being slower, tethered phones only work for as long as their battery holds up and while tethering, their batteries die faster.

lastly, you can't use the phone to make or receive calls while tethered.

all in all, the only way tethering is a good idea for data, is if you only need to get high speed data infrequently... like maybe once a day? or a week?

Mrs. CountryGuy · 06-10-2007, 03:24 AM

Noting that we had an older phone (over 3 years old), would like to point out that we were able to be tethered and CHARGING at the same time. Now, we still were eating up battery power on the phone, but it did give us a bit more time online.

Also believe that many of the new phones just won't do tethering, that was one reason we stayed with the old phone for so long, as it was the only way for us to get online in many campgrounds.

Dustytuu · 06-10-2007, 03:50 AM

Carol we have Sprint phones and also Sprint data card with a Linksys router. We have had too weak a signal one time on the air card. Has worked very well every where we have been.
We just left a rally south of Colorado Springs in the mountains and we had the only phones that worked there! Our phones didn't work well when the clouds came in for a storm but worked very well most of the time. People were surprised when they found we had a phone that worked there.

Mrs. CountryGuy · 06-10-2007, 05:37 AM

Thanks for that info Dusty

Now, what we need is a good chance to give this system a trial, wayyyy west of the Mississippi!

jrgwdenner · 06-10-2007, 08:49 AM

Carol, I'm so glad that you've found a good solution for both travel and while at the stick house. Our Verizon aircard does that for us (as well as the wireless system of our neighbor! ) and we use our Directway both at home and on the road, so 'bye-bye' cable. It makes the aircard a good financial decision for us, too, with more connectivity. We're semi-remote in the stick house.

Dustytuu · 06-10-2007, 02:56 PM

Carol with our sprint plan we can talk to other sprint users and doesn't count on our minutes! Do you have this on your plan?

Mrs. CountryGuy · 06-10-2007, 03:10 PM

Mobile to Mobile, yes, so happens that we do have that coverage.

We got Al's mother a phone too, they had one that is very good for voice activation, she opens the lid, says Voice Dial, then the name of the person she wants to call. 84 years old, legally blind and her first cell phone! She is tickled pink, err, red, to match her phone!

Dustytuu · 06-10-2007, 05:25 PM

Carol that is great! I bet she likes this new technology!

We could talk to each other for free too.

sreigle · 06-16-2007, 02:08 PM

I think they all have the free calls option to others with the same service. We have that on Cingular. They call it mobile to mobile.

Our Verizon express aircard has worked well for us so far. It's nice to have our own wifi when the park has none or theirs is not much good.

David and Jo-Anna · 06-16-2007, 03:03 PM

I love our Verizon aircard - even used it driving down the road (well actually David was driving).

Received our MB6800 router this week and it seems to be working ok at home after a few setup snags. 3G was great at getting me going ok. Haven't tried the antena yet.

Hope it works as great on the road as it does here in Alexandria. We move out of here a week from Tuesday. July 1 we are hitting the road.

Jo-Anna

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