EvDO will be available to 80 million Verizon Wireless subscribers by year's end (link expires in 7 days): The faster cellular data service may make inroads, but, as this article in the Wall Street Journal notes, some of the limits make EvDO a broad niche technology instead of a total broadband replacement.

The article doesn't mention the tragedy of the commons, which is nowhere near happening yet, in which if EvDO becomes so popular, speeds could drop. Spectrum is scarce and with unlimited monthly data plans for $80/month currently, one could expect that dense areas of urban usage could see burst speeds up to the rated level and average speeds much lower. We won't know until deployment and usage moves far up.

The writer says EvDO stands for Evolution Data Optimized; most sites expand this as Data Only, however. It also omits EVDV, which is the Evolution Data/Voice upgrade for CDMA, which has top speeds several times faster, and integrates voice, which could improve voice quality and help carriers with overall voice capacity.

The end of this article muddles a few points. It notes that the carriers aren't abandoning Wi-Fi, but then cite Verizon DSL's limited Manhattan pay phone Wi-Fi rollout, which was already scaled back. In fact, it should have cited Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless's failure to roll out networks as announced last summer and into fall. AT&T Wireless has stuck with reselling Wayport and Cingular has no Wi-Fi plans.

Also, the statement about long-range wireless -- small wireless Internet-service providers are using variants of Wi-Fi, or various proprietary technologies, to provide wireless Internet access with ranges of several miles -- implies that this is coverage area, not point-to-point service.