JupiterResearch: Pay-As-You-Go EVDO

Julie Ask posts at the Jupiter Analyst Weblogs that Verizon will be "offering daily EVDO rates for those with EVDO embedded in some laptops." She likes the idea because after surveying prosumers (those who travel for business, those who travel frequently for business), Jupiter found:

not many travel frequently enough to justify an EVDO subscription as measured by number of days on the road multiplied by $10 - the common fee for Wi-Fi which is often the alternative. Also, great idea for driving trials. Folks will LOVE this technology once they use it.

Daily rates are a good idea and I agree folks will love it when they try it. Of course, adoption will be limited until there are more laptops out there with embedded EVDO, since the cost of a EVDO card doesn't really justify ad hoc daily usage.

A more cost-effective alternative for enterprises just might be to outfit employees, who occasionally travel, with EVDO-enabled handsets from Sprint and then sign them up for the $15 all-you-can-eat Power Vision data plan plus the $25 a month plan that lets you use the handset as a modem via a USB cable. As discussed here at Dan Taylor's Mobile Enterprise Weblog, only four days on the road justifies the cost, plus the handset can also be used for voice...