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| The category-breaker: BroadbandAccess Service |
| The vendor: Verizon Wireless |
| The columnist: Ira Brodsky, president of Datacomm Research, Totally Unplugged |
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What makes this service so special? Until now, corporations willing to use mobile data to improve field productivity and service had to make significant, often unacceptable, trade-offs. Applications had to be "dumbed down" to work over slow and unreliable services via devices with frustratingly small screens and keyboards. Verizon Wireless' CDMA2000 EV-DO service, marketed as BroadbandAccess, performs more like DSL or cable modem service than familiar cellular data. BroadbandAccess heralds the long-touted era of 3G wireless. With Evolution-Data Optimized technology, organizations not only can extend enterprise networks into the field but also can reach customers equipped with handheld multimedia devices in new ways - perhaps changing the way we conduct business.
Who's using it? Because CDMA2000 EV-DO rolled out during the second half of 2004 in select cities, corporations are just starting to kick its tires. One of Verizon's biggest mobile data customers, UPS, is testing it. Other companies are doing the same but are reluctant to talk about it for competitive reasons. However, this is a technology that many users will start to employ on their own, so it behooves IT leaders to learn what EV-DO can and can't do in order to better manage and secure its use.
Verizon now offers at least partial coverage for BroadbandAccess in 30 cities and plans to cover 150 million people (about half the U.S. population) by the end of 2005.
 Brodsky |
Suitable business applications include e-mail (even with large attachments), Web browsing, database queries and multimedia messaging. Consumer applications include games, mobile TV, mobile commerce and location-based services.
How much will it cost the average enterprise? Verizon initially targeted business users exclusively, selling PC cards for $100 (after a $150 mail-in rebate) with a one-year service contract and $50 with a two-year contract. The service costs $80 per month with unlimited use.
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