Back in October, I was given a Blackberry 8703e on the Sprint CDMA EV-DO network (pictured) in order to conduct business. After a few months I gave it back, one of the many reasons was that it was a nuisance, but that is a topic for another post. Anyway, I was listening to an engadget podcast the other day and I was hearing how fast EV-DO is. If you frequent HowardForums there are a number of fanboys that battle it out frequently - which is faster? EVDO or HSDPA? I don't pay attention to the debates but I was thinking to myself the other day, after I heard it again on engadget, "EV-DO is fast?!, Really?!?!"

Now, I rarely use data on my phone, primarily because it is way to expensive for my tastes and I already have WiFi at home, so I tend to either be on my laptop over 802.11g, or on my N80 over that 802.11 connection. There have been a few times that I have been on mobile data. Most recently to download an application on my N80 when I did not have a WiFi connection, and to update data on several programs on my N80. I really did not think much of the speed of EDGE until I recalled the painful speeds on my Blackberry on EV-DO!

When I had the blackberry, I decided to utilize as many features as possible, just in case some director or assistant director wanted to ask me questions regarding functionality and troubleshooting (despite the fact that it wasn't my job). I went online with the built-in web browser, and all I can remember were the painfully slow connection! I did have a full signal and I did have an EV connection, but despite that full websites were painfully slow to come up! WAP sites were fine and came up rapidly, but full were not. My main experinece with wireless data is 802.11, and even on 'b' you are surfing faster than EV-DO rev0! Now EV-DO is billed as 'broadband speed' - but I really did not experience that. Of course when you compare 1x-rtt to EV-DO or if you compare EDGE to HSDPA, of course it's going to be faster, but is it really 'broadband'?