I've heard rumors (here & elsewhere) that the Blackberry 7250 is EV-DO capable & we are just waiting on a Verizon software upgrade to make it functional.

Does anyone in the know have any word on when/if EV-DO will become available on the 7250 on Verizon's network??

Thanx

I don't see how since EVDo is a Qualcom CDMA product. Do the BB products through Verizon or Sprint run on CDMA? I know that my T-Mo won't be able to access EVDo - it's the wrong system.

All phones that are on the Verizon and Sprint networks are CDMA and use a Qualcomm chip. Yes, it has EV-DO built-in. No, the software for the handheld does not support it yet. Yes, it will be a firmware/OS update to access the EV-DO functionality. Yes, it will be available in the next 2-3 months.

Wow.. Not sure what else to say. The 7250 is a CDMA product. BlackBerry is not limited to GSM (T-Mobile). They even make products that run on the Nextel iDen network.

Here is a very good web site from RIM that shows all of their products....

http://www.blackberry.com/products/h...ds/index.shtml

I have a 7250 thru Verizon and called up their Tech Support and they told me that EVDO would not work on the 7250, which bummed me out. Where did this information come from about it be available on the 7250.

By the way, the following link will show you the EVDO coverage for Verizon:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/CoverageLocatorController?requesttype=NEWREQUEST[/url]
Click on Broadband Access and VCast, then put in your zip, city, state, etc.

It has been said time and again, from RIM reps and from Verizon reps, that the handheld has EV-DO capabilities built-in but not supported by firmware/OS yet. This will come within a few months. If they told you that it would not work, they are correct in stating that... Currently, it will not work. In a few more months after their next OS release that does support EV-DO, I'm sure you can call back and they will say that it does support it.

A more appropriate question would be to RIM asking if the EV-DO chip was built-in to the 7250.

I work for Verizon and just purchased the 7250/ EV-DO will be available in June early July as stated before, with a firmware update. This comes from our exucitive director of programing in EV-DO.

What benefit will EVDO bring to email delivery - seems pretty fast already. Is the main benefit of EVDO going to be for speed of accessing websites?

email won't benefit, other then maybe opening up attachments faster, but yes, it will be beneficial to browsing the web, and as well as possibly making the 7250 officially functional as a modem (so i heard from a little bird), which would be great, especially with the ev-do speed. the little bird wasn't sure if any specific apps were being designed for ev-do, which keeps me curious, what will come? hopefully some sort of video app..

Out2L8, please do your research before making assumptions on what device has what future capabilities and network settings.. shouldn't bash anything before you know what's inside it..

Sweet!

That's good news for us folks up in Canada where TELUS Mobility has been working on EVDO for the 7250!

Verizon EVDO will be a tethered solution to the BB.

And if BT can be unlocked for modem connections, that would be just great!

If you take an application like Wallace Wireless with their WIC application, it will be veeery interresting to have the EvDo speed on the Blackberry!

If EV-DO is enabled on the 7250,
Question #1: will it be V CAST or BroadbandAccess
Question #2: how will speed compare to EV-DO PC cards

Keep tuned.

This is a bigger tease then not saying anything at all hehehe...

If EV-DO is enabled on the 7250,
Question #3: if EV-DO with Broadband Access at $79 or rumored $60, will that include BlackBerry push-email service?

from PCSintel.com...I hope this doesn't influence Verizon to charge for a software upgrade for their firmware-abled evdo device (BB 7250) to realize its full potential...

Update: Many are pointing to DSL Reports mobile speed test results which was the first indication of the PPC-6700. A Sprint branded version of the device has been reporting results in testing there for almost a month, and it does indicate based on Pocket Internet Explorer versions that it is running 4.01, and not the Windows Mobile 5 version of PIE. This does appear to indicate that regardless of hardware that the PPC-6700 will run WM2003SE, and since all post-JAM products run WM5, that the hardware form-factor is existing, and not new.

Sprint customer service representatives today have officially begun to inform consumers of an upcoming product, the PPC-6700. Readers will recall, that we speculated this exact name months ago for the device (Sprint aparrently listens, in the worst of ways).

The PPC-6700 is expected to be a $649 software update to the existing PPC-6600. Currently confirmed is that it will add EV-DO to the device, as well as Windows Media Player 10 (which was previously released in an unofficial update). It is not known if Windows Mobile 5.0 will be included or not. Microsoft has said in the past that no PDA/Phone device will be allowed to updated to WM5, so it is possible that Sprint is circumventing this by releasing a new product.

Sprint has declined to comment multiple times as to if the PPC-6600 will be updated to support EV-DO, an update which our own SPI Labs has confirmed they have had in their possession since before the device launched.

Sprint customer service was told that the device is expected to launch in August, which would mark the release of EV-DO enabled handsets for Sprint and indicates the expected date of a consumer soft launch of EV-DO services.

When available, will this firmware update be installed by the user or by a tech at the VZW store?