Sprint Nextel has announced in correspondence with the Q2 earnings that they will roll out EV-DO Revision A 1 quarter earlier than previously anticipated. The faster 3G technology ( owned by Qualcomm) was originally going to be rolled out starting in the first quarter of 2007. Sprint plans to have its entire network upgraded to EV-DO revision A by the third quarter of 2007 — which currently covers over 200 million customers.

Just last week Sprint successfully completed their first EV-DO Revision A data connection on the Sprint Power Vision network in San Diego, California. The results of this test, combined with a number of other positive performance test benchmarks was a key driver in re-evaluating the deployment timeline. Additionally, Sprint has been demonstrating next generation applications such as IP video telephony, high performance push-to-talk (walkie-talkie service on CDMA), multi-user video conferencing, real time gaming and video streaming of both content and live web cams simultaneously.

Revision A gives EV-DO a speed boost — most noticeable when uploading:
Revision 0 –> Revision A
Max download: 2Mbps –> 3.1Mpbs
Avg download: 400-700kbps –> 450-800kbps
Max upload: 144kbps –> 1.8Mbps
Avg upload: 70-144kbbs –> 300-400kbbs

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