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Rumors are flying that–after long wait–Verizon will finally flip the switch on Ev-DO in the Bay area. A reader from Mountain View pinged me earlier and said that he was getting some serious EVDO signal. Taking his advice, I decided to walk around San Francisco (I need the exercise and it was a rare sunny day here in the city by the Bay) with my Powerbook 15, Novatel Wirelessv620 card and a bunch of other EVDO gizmos.

I’m using a Motorola E815 and getting an Ev-DO signal near Union Square in San Francisco. My friend, Andy Abramson came by yesterday and his Samsung i730 was picking up EVDO signals and getting decent space as well.

The card however, did not get the speeds phones were getting, but the tiny EVDO sign showed up in the menu. Very cool! Engineers are said to be making the final tweaks–testing the network, etc–before an announcement early next week. Verizon’s 3G network has been live at the SF airport since June, and now they are prepared to turn on the rest of the area. About time. The Sprint EVDO is working in some parts of San Francisco Bay Area. Meanwhile, Mobiletracker says that Verizon is going to slash prices on its EVDO service from $80 to $60 a month. Now that’s the kind of news I can smile about.

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