Charlottesville now has EVDO

Sprint has had it for some time, but their service is notoriously bad.

Thanks to Alltel. Why does this matter? To me, not that much, other than I can now tell my citi-fied clients coming from larger cities that we have it.

What is it? Wireless broadand for cell phones.

Update 12-14-2006: Alltel’s press release. Note: I had it first. 🙂

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7 Comments

  1. Rod Boev December 12, 2006 at 21:41

    How long has Sprint had EVDO in Charlottesville? And Alltel just added it Dec 9th?

  2. Jim Duncan December 12, 2006 at 22:06

    I think that Sprint has had it for a little while – I have never had their service, so I don’t know first-hand.

    Alltel has been implementing it for a few weeks now and it has finally “stuck” on my phone this week.

  3. Rod Boev December 12, 2006 at 22:20

    What part of Charlottesville are you in? I just ordered a Sprint phone today and am now reconsidering.

    The three big reasons for me were (a) voice and data roaming on Alltel, (b) their 100% of network EVDO by end 2007 promise and (c) the cheaper Sprint SERO plans ($50/mo for 1250 anytime, U/L N&W, U/L EVDO, before my 20% U.Va. corp. discount, if they allow it with SERO).

    Have any of the users you know with Sprint tried to force roaming on Alltel? If not it may be worth a try. I will update once I receive my phone.

    I also live nearby U.Va., BTW.

  4. Jim Duncan December 12, 2006 at 22:32

    I live in Crozet. My office is in Charlottesville. I travel all over the region and most places I have been of late have had the little red “EV” button/light/I don’t know what to call it …

    I don’t know about forcing roaming, but I do know that more people than not that I know have been less than satisfied with Sprint/Nextel.

    So long as you don’t need to go to the Alltel store, all is well.

  5. Rod Boev December 12, 2006 at 22:38

    Can I assume that you mean that the employees at the stores are unhelpful? I actually just tried calling a local store to inquire about EVDO and got a terribly misconfigured voice mailbox.

  6. Jim Duncan December 12, 2006 at 22:46

    The people are helpful. It’s just a matter of getting to one of them. It’s always busy and understaffed (at least the one on Rio is)

  7. Rod Boev January 28, 2007 at 02:26

    Using Sprint with forced roaming on Alltel, no issues. The roaming is free and covers both voice and EVDO data. The Sprint SERO plans are also about half the price of comparable Alltel plans (and include free data, which is $20 on Alltel).