In the quest for mobility and to be a more useful computer guy, I signed up for Verizon’s BroadbandAccess program. I got a USB EVDO modem that I’ve got running in either of two laptops. One of which runs Windows XP and the other that runs Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

Before I went ahead and signed up, I went looking for data on the speeds I could expect from either Verizon or AT&T. I didn’t find much for the local area but one forum post did mention >1 megabit download speeds very near me using Verizon.

Now that I have the service, I decided to start testing and map my results. The product is here in the form of a Google Map. At each test point, I ran Speakeasy’s Speedtest (http://speakeasy.net/speedtest) and recorded the download and upload speed. The markers are color coded for download speed only with Green > 1 Mbit, Yellow > 0.3 Mbit and Red < .3Mbit. If you click on a marker you’ll see the download speed in kbps in the title and the upload speed in kbps below that. All testing was done in Windows XP.
View Verizon EV-DO Speedtests in a larger map

Overall, I’m very pleased with the service but I would like to see something similar done with AT&T’s 3G in the same area.