Amid Europe’s supposed 3G awesomeness the gauntlet is thrown down that their 3G (UMTS, HSDPA, basically the upgrade path for the GSM tech they have over there) is the best 3G out there, and that we stupid (North) Americans have no idea what we’re doing with this non-GSM technology…I beg to differ…especially when you’re actually in the U.S…

First off, if Kevin Rose can’t get a decent Qik video out over his Nokia phone using WiFi, I gotta wonder how good the cell networks are over in Europe, data-speed-wise. Maybe better than I think, but then again if you take an iPhone over there you may not be able to get even EDGE data. On the other hand the networks seem to have skipped EDGE in favor of UMTS data, so things go both ways…

But as I was saying, EvDO…

Well, done right, it’s awesome.

In the U.S. you have quite a few carriers with networks supporting this 3G technology. Sprint, Verizon and Alltel are the biggest ones, covering probably over 250 million, if not more, people with the high-speed network. I think at least 240 million of those have access to the highest-speed version currently out there, Revision A, which allows for faster uploads, slightly faster downloads and a generally better internet experience, though regardless it’s great. You also have smaller carriers like CricKet adding the tech to their networks. Though they may or may not contribute to the whole population-covered figure of EvDO coverage, it’s really neat to see three carriers covering the same area with high-speed data over the air. That’s more competition that you usually get on the wireline side of things (read: cable + DSL). If you go up north into Canada, two of the three big networks up there (Telus and Bell…the other is Rogers) have this data system rolled out as well. Mexico has a carrier that’ll allow you to use any of their (small…see my post about it) network, prepaid, to access high-speed data.

Contrast this to the current state of affairs on UMTS-based 3G in the Americas. There are exactly three carriers who, to my knowledge, operate such networks, with a fourth one coming (T-Mobile in the U.S.) These three are AT&T (US), Rogers (Canada) and Telcel (Mexico). The thing is, though a large proportion of each carrier’s phones are capable of 3G data, the places you can actually get such service is small. Probably combined the data area would be smaller on UMTS than the network of just one big CDMA carrier, EvDO-wide (Alltel, Sprint, Verizon). It probably doesn’t help matters that UMTS is actually a TOALLY different tech than the GSM it sits alongside, as far as deployment goes to the various networks that have taken that route.

Also, UMTS is a bit slow…

Though it boasts theoretical speeds (1.8, 3.6 or even 7.2 megabits per second) that surpass that CDMA (2.4 or 3.1 megabits) can deliver, from everyone’s experience (or it seems that way) CDMA looks to win out in everyday use as “the fastest gun”. Not only does it have more coverage in the Americas, it actually comes closer to its theoretical limits on download speed than HSDPA (the upgrade of UMTS that’s the fast stuff) does. I’ve on several occasions connected my EvDO-powered smartphone (the Mogul on Sprint) to my computer and surfed the web with it, wherever I happened to be. The speeds were a little slower on the uptake than your common DSL connection, but once you start downloading information the speeds are highly comparable. This is from a wireless system, available in tons of places and on probably 90% of new phones that use the CDMA network at all. Contrast this with AT&T’s offering: I walk into an AT&T store (which is of course full bars on their service) and test out the laptop that was showcasing their HSDPA data service. Keep in mind this isn’t going through the bottleneck of a slow phone. The speeds I was feeling seemed comparable to satellite internet, and that’s not a compliment.

Yes, you can use EvDO as your only internet provider, as long as you don’t mind things not being mach-speed fast. In fact, hopefully I’ll be switching my parents onto such a system sooner than later. Though you’ll want Sprint or Alltel, who don’t cap off your data transfer at five gigabytes per month, as opposed to Verizon or CricKet, who do. Unless you’re just doing very light web surfing or something similarly non-content-heavy. Anyhow, you just grab a data card and either plug it into your computer or set it up somehow to be shared via your home network if you have such a thing. The easiest (albeit rather expensive) way to do this is vy grabbing a router for the task from the likes of Cradlepoint via www.3gstore.com. Or grab a WiFi-equipped smartphone (like the Mogul), get an app called WMWiFiRouter on it and share your internet that way.

I must say that I’m very happy with what I’ve seen of EvDO, from using it on various vacations to just having a fast connection on my cell phone with which I can get information when and where I need it. My school campus’ WiFi is for my iPhone; my Mogul runs EvDO 24/7 and it’s just grrrreat.