Users praise Verizon plan for national wireless data network

Computerworld - Plans by Verizon Wireless to install a beefed-up cellular data network throughout the U.S. captured the attention of several corporate IT managers, who said the promised throughput levels could support applications such as sales force automation and streaming video.
Verizon Wireless yesterday said it will begin a phased rollout of its BroadbandAccess third-generation wireless network this year and start offering services nationwide next year (see story). The Bedminster, N.J., company added that the network will cost a total of about $1 billion and support data rates of 300K to 500Kbit/sec., three to four times faster than rival technologies that are available now.
Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, said the company plans to offer the services in a "significant portion of our nationwide market this summer," with the nationwide rollout completed in 2005. He declined to identify the specific markets Verizon Wireless plans to serve with BroadBandAccess this year.
Users said Verizon's move to blanket the country with a network that offers three times the throughput of its competitors could be a compelling reason to switch services from other carriers. Users who are already signed up as customers in Verizon Wireless high-speed test markets in San Diego and Washington said the rollout will support their plans to use the service in other markets.
Scott Cranford, a vice president at San Diego-based Continental Lab Products Inc., said the nationwide rollout will let sales workers for the laboratory equipment distributor quickly synchronize their laptop PCs with corporate databases from anywhere in the U.S.
Sales reps in San Diego and Washington can synchronize data with Continental's back-end systems in "about a minute," Cranford said. In other parts of the country, workers have to use Verizon Wireless' older data network, which provides data rates of up to 70Kbit/sec. Data synchronization over that network can take 20 minutes, Cranford said.
Charlie Orndorff, vice president of infrastructure services at Crossmark, a Plano, Texas-based company that offers sales and marketing services to makers of consumer packaged goods, said he plans to evaluate BroadbandAccess as a means of providing remote e-mail access to 2,000 end users equipped with Hewlett-Packard Co.'s iPaq handheld computers. Orndorff said Crossmark uses the existing Verizon Wireless network to support access to back-end sales force automation applications. But the network doesn't have enough bandwidth for e-mail, he added.
Verizon Wireless plans to charge a monthly fee of $79.99 per user for unlimited data services on the BroadbandAccess network. Orndorff said he views the price as reasonable, considering that Crossmark now spends about $50