I bought a Treo 700p phone/pda a few months back. I knew that after the wedding I’d be moving to Tampa where they have the EVDO network. Until the wedding, I’m in the Sarasota area, which has been limited to a 1xRTT connection. It hasn’t been horrible for backup purposes (about 110 kbps down and 70kbps up)… but web surfing is a bit rough at that download speed.
The other day, I looked down at my phone and saw that where there was usually a little “1x” icon, there was an “EV” icon instead — just like I got in Tampa and Houston and San Francisco. It’s been going on and off for the past day or two… sometimes I get the EVDO tower, and sometimes it isn’t even broadcasting and I get the 1xRTT tower… so Verizon probably has a few bugs to work out. Regardless, when it works, it’s awesome. I got 564kbps down and 88kbps up… over Bluetooth! It may be even faster (and less battery draining) tethering the phone via USB. At full speed (during the bandwidth test), it causes my Bluetooth mouse to slow down, which suggests that it is saturating the airwaves. The Palm software to enable USB tethering is $25… haven’t decided if it’s worth it to me.
Verizon EVDO in Sarasota!