WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

Gizmodo reports that in consistent testing of Sprint's 3G network in eight cities selected by the blog showed Sprint unequivocally beating both AT&T and Verizon in download performance speeds.

"On download performance Sprint wins overall, beating AT&T five cities to three, and beating Verizon in four cities," said Wilson Rothman, Gizmodo Features Editor. "Proving that Sprint is a serious contender in almost any location... they should be taken seriously as a 3G and 4G data service provider."

The process for Gizmodo's test involved passing three mobile broadband cards - one each from AT&T, Sprint and Verizon - between testers in eight cities: Austin, Boston, New York, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, San Francisco and the Bay Area, Chicago and Seattle. Testers chose up to five locations in each city, including suburban locations, where they tested network connectivity by running a series of five bandwidth tests with each device. Testers then followed the bandwidth tests up with an auxiliary battery of repeated pageload and file download tests in order to verify the earlier bandwidth readings.

"This may not be a clean-room lab study, but we kept firm to our methods and the results speak to that," wrote Rothman. "There's a reason this may be the most information anyone has gathered, independently, on the subject."

Sprint's Sierra Wireless Compass 597 was selected by Gizmodo for the testing process. As the nation's smallest USB modem for mobile broadband networks, the Sierra Wireless Compass 597 USB modem is about the size of a pack of gum. It features automatic installation of Sprint SmartView^S software and one-touch activation on the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network for both Mac and PC users, making it quick and easy to get up and running.