Rev.B

[kilmarac]

Ok, Flame me for being stupid if you want, but I was just looking at the EVDO specs. Did you guys know there is a EVDO Rev.B? Is this the fabled WiMAX that sprint is working on?

The upgrade from EVDO rev A to EVDO rev B can be done with a software upgrade at the network. The software upgrade has been available commercially since early 2007.
TIA-856 Rev B

EV-DO Rev B is a multi-carrier evolution of the Rev A specification. It maintains the capabilities of EVDO Rev A, and provides the following enhancements:

• Higher rates per carrier (up to 4.9 Mbit/s on the downlink per carrier). Typical deployments are expected to include 3 carriers for a peak rate of 14.7 Mbit/s
• Higher rates by bundling multiple channels together enhance the user experience and enables new services such as high definition video streaming.
• Uses statistical multiplexing across channels to further reduce latency, enhancing the experience for latency-sensitive services such as gaming, video telephony, remote console sessions and web browsing.
• Increased talk-time and standby time
• Hybrid frequency re-use which reduces the interference from the adjacent sectors and improves the rates that can be offered, especially to users at the edge of the cell.
• Efficient support for services that have asymmetric download and upload requirements (i.e. different data rates required in each direction) such as file transfers, web browsing, and broadband multimedia content delivery.

[jaak]

There's also a Rev C in the works. WiMax is a completely different (and competing) system and incompatible with EVDO. From what I've read, Rev C will not be backwards compatible. So no easy software upgrade.