Rev. B gains steam: Airvana gearing for operator tests of the CDMA upgrade

The wireless industry’s incessant march toward faster and better networks appears to be showing no signs of slowing as industry players gear up for increasing interest in CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision B technology, a software upgrade to the Rev. A networks that Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless are in the midst of building out.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest in Rev. B,” said Dave Nowicki, VP of marketing and product management for infrastructure vendor Airvana.
Indeed, Airvana recently announced it completed a successful test of Rev. B technology in its lab, which the company touted as a “major step towards commercialization.”
Airvana also said it will begin operator trials of Rev. B technology in the third quarter of this year, although the company did not name which carriers would be testing the technology. Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Alltel Corp. are the three main CDMA carriers in the United States.
Nowicki said Rev. B is a software upgrade for CDMA networks, much like Rev. A. According to Airvana, Rev. B would initially support peak data speeds of 9.3 megabits per secon on the forward link and 5.4 Mbps on the reverse link using three 1.25 MHz-wide carriers. However, actual speeds for end users likely would be much slower.
It’s unclear whether Sprint Nextel or Verizon Wireless will upgrade their newly minted Rev. A networks to Rev. B; neither Sprint Nextel nor Verizon Wireless has yet introduced a Rev. A-capable handset. Thus, anther full-blown network upgrade may be on the back burner.
Nonetheless, the nation’s carriers struggle daily to outdo each other, and the allure of a faster network may well push them into action.
While there is apparently interest in Rev. B technology, it seems the next step on the CDMA evolution path-Revision C-is still in the far distance.
Perry LaForge of the CDMA Development Group said that, so far, there is little interest in Rev. C, which is also called Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB). Perry said there is also little interest in LTE technology, which is on the GSM upgrade path.
“I don’t hear (interest in) it,” LaForge said.