VoIP over EVDO

Found an interesting company that can do VoIP over EVDO, a popular high-speed data network used by Sprint, Verizon, and other mobile carriers. PeerMe, today launched its free service designed to allow users of Sprint EVDO mobile phones to make free unlimited calls. They currently offer a PocketPC and Windows Mobile 5 version of their client.

Actually, upon further review, my excitement over PeerMe has now waned. Although PeerMe uses VoIP technology to enable mobile phone users to communicate with other mobile phone users running PeerMe for free, it appears that PeerMe doesn't allow for PSTN calling. Thus, what you get with PeerMe is simply a PC-to-PC type service with IM capabilities. Well what's the point of that? PC-to-PC softphones and IM clients are a dime-a-dozen. How is PeerMe going to compete with the likes of Skype, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and others that offer IM, PC-to-PC, and PC-to-Phone functionality?

Well, maybe I should ask PeerMe that question. In the meantime, check out what their CEO had to say. PeerMe CEO Tom Lasater says, "Sprint has the best EVDO network in the U.S., but at the same time they have the highest churn in the industry and they signed up fewer new users than any of their competitors this year. We are giving them the ability to use their technological edge to become the leader in the U.S. wireless market."

"Nobody in the cell phone industry has done a marketing campaign touting the tremendous cost savings that can result from using peer-to-peer voice on a wireless broadband mobile device. Carriers are probably scared of cannibalizing their revenues, but lets look at the real cost of offering this service. Most people pay a flat fee for what is basically unlimited talk time within the U.S., so PeerMe usage is going to affect revenue from overseas calls. The reality is that the erosion of revenue from overseas calls already happened in the 1990s. Sprint should do a massive advertising campaign touting their EVDO-enabled devices as the solution for outrageous communications costs. Sprint could not only crush its mobile competitors with this strategy, they could also blindside the DSL and fixed-line broadband industry."

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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 14th, 2006 with no comments.
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Sprint To Detail 4G Strategy: WiMAX?

Sprint plans to announce the details of its much-anticipated 4G network in a conference later today, and the company has been trialling various technologies including WiMAX, Qualcomm-backed technologies, and IP Wireless’ technology, among others.

Some are saying that Sprint has chosen WiMAX, partly to avoid the Qualcomm royalty ecosystem, where Qualcomm takes a percentage of every handset sold. We called Sprint and they wouldn’t comment on the technology choice, but we’ll bring you more details later in the day.

If it’s true, that’s another public strike against Qualcomm’s high fees, which seem to be riling carriers in developing markets. Though, Qualcomm also has a good business with Sprint for its CDMA network, and Sprint is even upgrading its high speed EVDO service earlier than expected by the end of this year. It’s not too big a suprise that Sprint would not want to keep shelling out money to the same company if there are other comparable technologies available.

If Sprint has chosen WiMAX it would be a major win for Intel and the like that have been trying to push the technology by massive investment. If a company like Nortel could manage to win the contract it would do wonders for its attempts at a turn around.

Sprint has been mulling over its technology choice for awhile. Last January Sprint’s COO Len Lauer made a speech at CTIA laying out Sprint’s plans for its 4G network, which will run over 2.5 GHz spectrum that the company owns. At that time Lauer said the company will use its partnership with cable for exclusive media content, and will transition its media and mobile TV services to the new network when the 3G network gets too crowded. He said the network could launch as soon as 2008 and the entertainment services might be sold for a monthly charge of between $20 and $40 a month.

In an interview later that day he told me the 4G network would likely cost upwards of $800 million to build — the fee that Qualcomm has said it is spending on its MediaFLO network in the U.S. With Sprint reporting pretty tepid earnings last week, does the company really need to be spending that much on an experimental technology that has yet to prove itself in the market?

Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on August 8th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Unwired and WiMAX and Cellular and spectrum and EVDO.

Sprint’ Super Fast EVDO This Fall

Sprint Nextel, which announced tepid earnings yesterday is looking to wireless broadband to add a little sizzle to its bottomline. In conference call with analysts, Sprint-Nextel CEO Gary Forsee said that the company is moving the deployment schedule up by a quarter - from first quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2006.

“The success of our lab testing for EV-DO Rev A drove our decision to advance the deployment timeline, and I am pleased to report that we will make this exciting new service available to 40 million persons by the end of 2006,” he said. Sprint says it will have have 200 million EVDO POPs by end of the year.

Sprint, perhaps is feeling the pressure from AT&T/Cingular’s 3G services launch, and Verizon which is planning to aggressively rollout its own EVDO-Rev A service. EVDO Rev A is much faster version of the current EVDO Rev 0 technology and is capable of providing 3.1 megabits/s down, and 1.8 megabits/s upstream service. This opens up many possibilities, including high quality VoIP calling and better video streaming.

This quarter, our engineers demonstrated the first EV-DO Rev A over-the-air transmission, featuring average download speeds of 450 to 800 kilobits per second, and average upload speeds of 300 to 400 kilobits per second. We are successfully demonstrating applications, such as all-IP video telephony, high-performance push-to-talk, multi-user video conferencing, real-time gaming and video streaming — new applications which are expected to unlock tremendous new growth opportunities for our company.

Wireless data can help Sprint help blunt some of the pain caused by cheaper voice minutes. In the most recent quarter, the company had wireless data ARPU of $7.25, which is about 12% of the total ARPU. Wireless data revenue was nearly $850 million, an increase of nearly 70% year over year. The company said that Aircard business is posting robust growth, with Aircard revenue increasing 77% year over year and it has nearly 1.2 million Sprint Power Vision subscribers, up 57% sequentially. These are good indicators that wireless broadband can be a savior for the company.

Written by Om Malik on August 4th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Wireless Broadband and qualcomm and EVDO.

Verizon EVDO To Get Faster

Verizon Wireless’ EVDO has won itself many fans, and those fans will have a lot to cheer about later this summer or early fall, when the company rolls out an upgrade to its wireless data network.

Verizon’s key supplier Nortel Networks today announced that it will be supplying gear to Verizon and has finished trials successfully. In comparison to today’s EVDO technology, the Rev A technology is able provide peak data rates of up to 3.1 Mbps on the forward link (information flowing from the cellular base station to the subscriber) and up to 1.8 Mbps on the reverse link (information flowing from the subscriber back to the cellular base station).

Though it is highly unlikely that we will all see those speeds, but they will be substantially higher than what we get today - 200 kbps in good areas of coverage. In this week’s podsession, Niall and I discuss the the impact of 3G, and other wireless access technologies. (You can download it here.)

Written by Om Malik on July 20th, 2006 with no comments.
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