July 28, 2006
Unlimited Cell Phone Data Plan? - Mmm, Not So Much
Nate Anderson has a great overview of how unlimited "unlimited" 1xEV-DO (=EVDO = Evolution-Data Optimized) wireless data plans on cellular phones really are. He mentions Verizon, but what he says holds true with a lot of providers.
EVDO is the wireless data network that some CDMA-based cell phones use, in a number of countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Canada and the US. (The Wikipedia link above has a fairly comprehensive list of carriers, phones and laptop data cards which use EVDO.)
If you have a smartphone or PDA that uses CDMA, the wireless data plan available is likely to be EVDO-based. If you've purchased, or are thinking of purchasing, an "unlimited" monthly data/ wireless plan, check your provider's fine print. More than likely, there's a bit of text that says you cannot use the service for VoIP, streaming music or video, and several other purposes.
When I called my service provider recently to upgrade to the "unlimited" plan, he told me that not only was that plan grandfathered, it had only ever been available on the laptop data card, not my Palm Treo 650. I insisted that the sales rep had said otherwise, but the rep wouldn't budge. So I ended up witha plan offering only 250 Mb/mth bandwidth, for something like $100/m. Ouch.
Consider that one day, when I had trouble with my regular Internet connection, I used my Palm Treo 650's EVDO connection, via a Bluetooth USB adapter (different from a Bluetooth headset) as a modem, from my laptop. In a regular half-day's web browsing for researching my daily articles, I used nearly 90 Megabytes. In a half day. No streaming music or video. Just one test of VoIP, because I was writing about a service.
Note: CDMA phones cannot use the phone and the wireless connection simultaneously, which usually means not being able to use most VoIP software directly on the device.
Obviously cell phone data plans are not for power web surfers like myself, but it sure would be nice to have options for a bigger bandwidth plan at a better.
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