Will WiMAX impact the market for EV-DO Rev. A?

On the upcoming episode of the MobileTechRoundup podcast (#62, due out shortly), James, Matt and I chat about the recent WiMAX announcement from Sprint. We’re all excited by the news and see a huge impact on the mobile landscape when WiMAX becomes a reality. One nagging question was eating at me though, so I thought to share it with you here for your thoughts.

It wasn’t that long ago that Sprint announced EV-DO Rev. A, which will bring faster upload and download wireless speeds; Verizon is also on the bandwagon. If memory serves, we’ll see Rev. A begin to make an impact late this year or early in 2007. With the WiMAX announcement indicating wireless coverage of over 100 million people in 2008, I have to wonder what does this do to for the potential EV-DO Rev. A market?

Will people be apt to upgrade their EV-DO devices to Rev. A knowing that an even faster service looms around the corner? Will consumers generally bypass Rev. A; will OEMs in terms of integrated radios for their mobile devices? Can the wireless carriers afford to boost a short lifecycled Rev. A market with heavy product subsidies? What do you think?

-kct

loading

Comments have been disabled for this post