EVDO In The Hood

Looks like Sprint has finally decided to connect my little burg to the rest of the world by quietly rolling out EVDO in Winchester, VA. Actually it is rolled out along the I-81 corridor, but I’m close enough to pick the signal up at home. I noticed this last night when I got out of the car after arriving at home and the little EV icon was there.

I gave it a test last night and it seems to work well, although coverage is spotty indoors, which isn’t surprising. On average I was getting download speeds over 680kbs throughout the evening. Driving in this morning I noticed that coverage still doesn’t exist south of town on I-81 yet, as it drops out about 5 miles south of Winchester as I head to the theatre. Which is a bummer. I guess that stretch of I-81 will remain unconnected for a bit longer, which makes no sense as you can pick up an EVDO signal another 10 miles south. Which is curious because last year I was able to sniff an EVDO signal on that stretch and not in Winchester.

Intriguingly HTC rolled out a firmware update for the Mogul this past week, although it did not include the promised EVDO Rev A upgrade. Of course that has a number of folks a bit out of whack.