A faster Internet connection on the road. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Wireless carriers have been selling cards that let you connect notebook PCs to the Internet wherever you can get a cell phone signal for years. A service called EVDO has been offered by Sprint and Verizon….and download speeds rivaled those of some wired DSL connections. Now Sprint has rolled out a new version of the service…called EVDO Rev A…..and it improves performance on the upload and download sides. Sprint VP Danny Bowman….

"With our upgrade to Rev A, we are improving those downlink speeds up to 450 to 800 kilobits per second. And on the uplink, we're improving to 300 and 400 kilobits per second which is a dramatic improvement, similar to what customers would get from a DSL line that were tethered into your home or office."

Performance will vary….and the highest speed service is only available in certain markets…including New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC and others. Verizon Wireless is upgrading its network to EVDO Rev A as well but Sprint…has reason to be in a hurry…

"One of the key reasons why we're rolling out on a torrid pace is we are looking to be able to take the world class push to talk service on the Nextel network and actually make that work on the upgraded data network which we are calling DO Rev A.

The goal is to have push to talk handsets that can also connect to the high speed data network available by early 2008. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.