Sprint's Outstanding Overdrive

上一篇 / 下一篇 2010-04-22 14:43:52 / 天气: 晴朗 / 心情: 高兴

Sprint's Outstanding OverdriveSprint's Outstanding OverdriveThis year, wireless carrier Sprint Nextel (S) #xis expending a lot ofPrintingeffort to promote its Overdrive mobile broadband modem, which searches for wireless connections to high-speed WiMAX technology or 3G networks, then creates Wi-Fi connections for up to five devices. In one humorous ad,google排名, No. 3 U.S. carrier Sprint pokes fun at leader AT&T's (T) network congestion problems by suggesting iPhone customers use the Overdrive to watch videos.

The Overdrive will likely be the first of many devices made available by carriers that let computers and smartphones communicate with each other wirelessly. These wireless hotspots won't initially replace consumers' faster cable-modem connections. And users of basic DSL Internet service may blanch at the comparative cost—Sprint charges new customers $100 (after a $250 rebate and with a two-year contract), plus a $60-a-month data plan—compared with $20 a month for the slowest variant of DSL.

The Overdrive lives up to some of Sprint's marketing hype. The palm-size device, made by Sierra Wireless (SWIR), is a fantasticPrintingutility in cities where Sprint partner Clearwire (CLWR) has built out next-generation 4G coverage. But the coverage map remains woefully bare outside Texas and the Pacific Northwest. In most places, the Overdrive falls back on slower 3G connections that are subject to the same congestion problems other wireless carriers face.

Once I booted up the Overdrive, which takes about a minute, it searched for a 4G network. If it can't find one, the device falls back to 3G, which slows the connection down to about 0.65 Mbps downstream and 0.2 Mbps for uploading data.

A small LCD screen on the Overdrive's front displayed the connection speed, which network I was using and how long I'd been connected, how much data I'd used so far that month, and how much data I'd used during that session. That's important because Sprint only lets users download or upload as much data as they want on its 4G network. With 3G, Sprint charges hefty fees for exceeding its monthly limit #xof 5 gigabytes of downloadedPrintingdata and 300 megabytes of uploads.相关的主题文章：

Sprint's Outstanding Overdrive

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