Sierra Wireless has begun shipping its AirCard 595 3G mobile broadband card based on EV-DO Revision A technology, the firm announced today. Cards coming off the company's production lines are being boxed up and sent to Sprint.
The 595 is a Type II PC Card that can deliver data download speeds of up to 3.1Mbps and uploads of up to 1.8Mbps on Revision A-capable networks. Sprint began rolling its EV-DO Rev A upgrade to its first-version EV-DO network - based on so-called EV-DO Rev 0 technology - this year.
Sierra said the 595 will connect to the older EV-DO network, but the speed maxes out at 2.5Mbps, while the upload speed is a mere 150Kbps - Rev A is mainly about improving uplink speeds
All these speeds are the respective technologies' theoretical maxima - real world speeds will be lower. Sierra warned users to expect "average download speeds to 450-850Kbps and average upload speeds to 300-400Kbps", but that's still "six times faster than currently available upload rates".
...
Sprint has in the past said it will ship EV-DO Rev A-compatible devices to end-users in Q3 2006, but the higher-speed connectivity - part of Sprint's Power Vision network - is not due to be made available to the public until Q4.
[MORE]