Sprint EVDO for Rural Broadband

My parents literally live in the middle of no where. Their house is seven miles directly in between two miniature towns with populations just barely over 1000. In the past, it has been hard to even get a mobile phone signal unless you were standing in the front yard on a clear day. Needless to say, it has always been hard to get any kind of reliable Internet connection for my parents. They are also unfortunately on the end of the phone line and there is periodic static which slows 56k dial up speeds considerably.

Due to the location of my parents, the only broadband option they had was a satellite connection. I was extremely skeptical of this service as I have never read good reviews for it. I decided satellite would be the last option. Recently while visiting their house, I noticed that I could get a reasonably good mobile phone signal while standing near a window in a certain section of the house. This prompted me to think of At&t's EDGE and Sprint's EV-DO mobile broadband solutions. I looked up the coverage maps for both services and we just happened to be right on the edge of coverage. The clear signal I was able to receive while standing by the magical window prompted me to take the plunge and pick up a Novatel Ovation U720 USB modem and sign up for a service contract. I was extremely skeptical and the representative assured me that I had a 30 day period to try the product.

When I returned home, installing the Novatel modem on my laptop was very simple. However, when it came time to connect to the service, I found that I had to again stand by the magical window in order to be able to establish a connection. Even then, the modem kept wanting to randomly connect to the sluggish 1xRTT protocol and periodically roam. I tweaked the configurations of the device to force it to only connect to Sprint EV-DO networks. After this was completed, a firmware and client software update was downloaded and installed. Surprisingly after the update, the signal strength seemed to be more consistent. I taped the Novatel modem to the window and started testing the connection. It turns out that I was able to get maximum download speeds of around 100Kb/Second with an average of 60Kb/Second. I was shocked. Although this is less then the advertised rate; I understand the dynamics of signal propagation. Being on the edge of the coverage area and still maintaining a speed like that is perfect for me. Its the best service available in our area! The service plan however, is a story for another day. Hats off to the EVDO wireless engineers. May their wisdom not delay WIMAX again.