June 25, 2005
EV-DO...A name that breathes mystery...romance...adventure
I found this article by David Pogue, on EV-DO, very interesting. It probably won't affect me much, though my new phone is EV-DO, 'cause I never go anywhere. But when we get it here in the Bay Area, Charlene's Treo is going to really hum...assuming she wants to pay for the service. (Rumors here have it already emerging in downtown SF, and other spots, like outbreaks of a new disease.)
...It's a relatively new cellular data network called C.D.M.A. 1xEV-DO, which, as you surely knew, stands for Code Division Multiple Access Evolution-Data Only. No wonder Verizon Wireless, the earliest and largest adopter of this technology, just calls it the BroadbandAccess plan.
To get your laptop onto this very fast wonder-net, you need a special cellular card that slides into its PC-card slot. Novatel and Kyocera have recently given the blossoming EV-DO future a big thumbs-up by releasing new cellular cards for laptops running Windows (and, with a little tweaking, Mac OS X).
EV-DO offers two addictive benefits. First, it's cellular. You don't have to hunt down public hot spots; an entire metropolitan area is a hot spot.
Second, EV-DO means sheer, giddy speed. EV-DO is a so-called 3G (third-generation) network, the fruits of $1 billion in Verizon development. And when your laptop or palmtop locks onto a good signal, you can practically feel the wind in your hair.
How fast is that, exactly? Verizon claims you'll be able to download data at an average of 400 to 700 kilobits per second (kbps), which turns out to be true. That makes EV-DO at least five times as fast as the rival technology offered by Cingular and T-Mobile, called EDGE (70 to 135 kbps), and about seven times as fast as Verizon's original data network (still available), which it calls NationalAccess (60 to 80 kbps)...
Verizon is leading in EV-DO, with Sprint just getting started. You can buy cards for your laptop, and newer phones may have it. However it's only fast downloading; uploading is not improved.
But what always flabbergasts me is how such fabulous, sexy, scintillating new technology can be sold with such banal names. Verizon is, I hear, hosing out about FOUR BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR to roll this service out, and yet the best name they can come up with is BroadbandAccess!
Apple would have come up with something enticing, like they did with Firewire (elsewhere known charmingly as IEEE-1394). Maybe QuickSilver, or Zap-Lightning, or June Bug, or something. And I'm not just thinking in terms of taste; it's worth money. Verizon will doubtless be spending millions on advertising to try to get people interested, and to get them to remember a totally forgettable name. Makes me want to scream. Spitball would be a better name...how 'bout Phaeton, LightSpeed, FastBall, Seabiscuit...Jeeze, they should hire me. My rates are very reasonable...
I bet the bozos spent 50 Grand on focus groups, so that lack-wits could agree that "BroadbandAccess" was a winner. Phooey.
Posted by John Weidner at June 25, 2005 09:45 PM | TrackBackMy son says Verizon is installing this near him too (in Maryland). Don't you think it's also amazing that they're so sure of the thing that they're spending gazillions of dollars before anyone has bought it?
Posted by: Anne at June 26, 2005 06:58 AMAmazing. We are living in science fiction.
Posted by: John Weidner at June 26, 2005 11:35 AMI signed up for EVDO this last month specifically because no cellular carrier has announced plans to retrofit it to existing cellphones (which could be used as modems, like Charlene's and my Treo.) Verizon has even said that it WILL NOT work on existing Treos. It's not as fast as WiFi by any stretch, but it is there whereever you can get a signal, and I'll take that any day. And I'm saving $10 a day on internet access in hotels when I'm out of town. I even cancelled my T-Mobile / Starbuck's account, since I can wheel into any cantina and connect.
Now if I could just figure out how to position the laptop so I can read email and type blog posts while I'm driving ;-)
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at June 26, 2005 06:37 PMPS for Anne: this is the promised evolution of CDMA. Verizon has been rolling it out in some markets, so lots of people have bought it already (certainly not $4BB worth, tho). I bought it once they covered over half of the major cities in my territory.
PS for John: the name, BroadbandAccess, fits with their old marketing name of NationalAccess for 1XRTT, the 140kbps data. Trying to shoe-horn Phaeton or JuneBug into customer (and corporate) mind-share would have taken even more billions, I'm sure.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at June 27, 2005 05:44 AMYeah, I knows about NationalAccess, but it it doesn't have any of my mind share, because I never remember it. Maybe I have an inflexible mind, not properly stretched because I don't watch TV, and ignore the ads in magazines. Maybe other people hear NationalAccess, and immediately think "Verizon." I doubt it.
But I have read that classic book on advertising, called Positioning, and agree with it that there are a limited number of slots in people's minds for brand names. People tend to remember "Tylenol," and not all the competitors. Tylenol owns the name for 'non-aspirin pain reliever," and the doctor says, "Give your child Tylenol."
And introducing a new product is the main opportunity for grabbing that mindshare. Once Tylenol is set in people's heads, you could spend a trillion on advertising Chaffinol, and probably not be able to bump it. But with something new, the mind-space is up for grabs.
What Verizon's doing is colossally stupid. This is a new thing, and they have the opportunity to own the name for it. Just like Google owns the name for search engine. There are lots of new search engines appearing, but they probably will never displace Google from that slot in people's heads.
And with a new thing it doesn't matter if the name sounds silly, because it becomes the word for that product. Even Google no longer sounds goofy.
Posted by: John Weidner at June 27, 2005 08:58 AMI know some brand names that _wouldn't_ work for the service:
Blisterfast
Regurgatationstation
Briskbits
Telehustle
ExpediteXtreme
Metroflasher
GallopingGigabytes
PocketRocket
UnrestrainedZipper
Ooh . . . Change the last in my list to "ZipperUnbound". And add "WonderWhizzer".
Posted by: Terry at June 27, 2005 06:22 PMBut it's not a new product, John. It's only new to you. It's been available for roughly a year, and been talked about (in geek circles, granted) for over 5 years. It's not even the biggest step they could take with CDMA. The next generation will be the big whang-dang-doodle, with the new name. Which I'll bet you $100 right now that it will be something whizzy.
And NationalAccess does have mindshare in their customer base (which is hugely corporate, too, don't forget). As I recall, yall just switched to Verizon. I've been a Verizon guy for about 5 years now. 1XRTT/NationalAccess was V1, and EVDO/BroadbandAccess is V1.1. I specifically established a customer relationship with Verizon so that I would be able to get EVDO cheap(ish), and be lined up for V2, which is going to be phenomenal. From a marketing perspective, sticking with the dull name right now is the way to go, since it's only early adopters like me that are going to be willing to pay for 400kbps. Save the marketing dollars for the REALLY BIG PUSH.
Oh, yeah, one more thing. Once they finish the $4BB infrastructure upgrade, and it's truly national, and it's tested to heck and back, then you'll see V2, Phaeton. Verizon has a hard-earned reputation for reliability, and they won't push the limits (IOW, sell me something) until they know for sure that the engineering is solid and that the network works. Trying to roll out Phaeton today would be a disaster for them if it failed. As a customer, I appreciate that. Yeah, it's stodgy and non-whizzy and old school, but for my lifeline, as a businessman, I like it like that.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at June 27, 2005 08:06 PMOkay, sounds good. But if Sprint gives their service a snappy name, and it lodges in the popular mind, it could be too late for Verizon.
Geeks, sure, but they will be trying to sell to the mass market soon enough, and maybe the mass market will be asking them for SprintZippy or something....
Terry - I love "Briskbits"!
Posted by: Ethan Hahn at July 2, 2005 09:28 AM
