Novatel’s Long Awaited EV-DO Merlin XV620 Gains FCC Approval…Finally

When I bought my laptop recently I was a bit surprised to realized that the express card slot, (based on the PCMCIA express standard) installed in the machine was not compatible with any of the WIFI, EVDO, GPRS or any other wireless networking standard wireless cards available on the market.

There was not even any adaptor available that would make my express card slot compatible to work with the currently available wireless cards either. To make things worse, all of the companies that had plans to release an express card capable of handling the new express card format were still in development. None of them were even past the FCC or PCMCIA approval process needed to bring a wireless networking product to market.

In the end I chose the option that many laptop owners in my situation have; I chose to buy an EV-DO router that converts the EV-DO signal it captures (by using a regular-sized wireless card from Verizon or Sprint) to a WIFI signal. There are a number of these EV-DO to WIFI routers currently available, but the drawback is their size and the fact that they add yet another piece of technology that can go bad and will eventually need to be replaced.

I tried to wait for the release of a wireless EV-DO express card. But with my job and school to tend to, I needed a way to use EV-DO and connect to the Internet on the road when I am away from a broadband connection. The only other way to get EV-DO to work without using one of the current EV-DO routers is to buy one of the few currently available laptops that contain built in EV-DO capabilities.

Most of these laptops use an internal version of the soon to be released express card format that is not yet available as an external card. With the completion of the approval process, the Novatel Merlin XV620 moves one step closer to becoming a new option for laptop owners who want to use their express card slots for EV-DO connection to the Internet.

There were rumors about the Novatel product that claimed it was scheduled to be released in late May or early June. However, that seems unlikely now that the product has just completed the approval process and it is already mid June. Hopefully, we will see a launch by the end of this month or at least by the end of the summer.

The fact that laptop manufacturers were so eager to release express card-capable machines makes me wonder why accessory makers weren’t as eager to capitalize on this by releasing their express cards at the same time. The speed of advancement in technology is so fast that it is inevitable that things like this will happen sometimes. However, it would be nice to see companies learn from this mistake and try to avoid similar ones in the future.

When I bought my laptop recently I was a bit surprised to realized that the express card slot, (based on the PCMCIA express standard) installed in the machine was not compatible with any of the WIFI, EVDO, GPRS or any other wireless networking standard wireless cards available on the market.

There was not even any adaptor available that would make my express card slot compatible to work with the currently available wireless cards either. To make things worse, all of the companies that had plans to release an express card capable of handling the new express card format were still in development. None of them were even past the FCC or PCMCIA approval process needed to bring a wireless networking product to market.

In the end I chose the option that many laptop owners in my situation have; I chose to buy an EV-DO router that converts the EV-DO signal it captures (by using a regular-sized wireless card from Verizon or Sprint) to a WIFI signal. There are a number of these EV-DO to WIFI routers currently available, but the drawback is their size and the fact that they add yet another piece of technology that can go bad and will eventually need to be replaced.

I tried to wait for the release of a wireless EV-DO express card. But with my job and school to tend to, I needed a way to use EV-DO and connect to the Internet on the road when I am away from a broadband connection. The only other way to get EV-DO to work without using one of the current EV-DO routers is to buy one of the few currently available laptops that contain built in EV-DO capabilities.

Most of these laptops use an internal version of the soon to be released express card format that is not yet available as an external card. With the completion of the approval process, the Novatel Merlin XV620 moves one step closer to becoming a new option for laptop owners who want to use their express card slots for EV-DO connection to the Internet.

There were rumors about the Novatel product that claimed it was scheduled to be released in late May or early June. However, that seems unlikely now that the product has just completed the approval process and it is already mid June. Hopefully, we will see a launch by the end of this month or at least by the end of the summer.

The fact that laptop manufacturers were so eager to release express card-capable machines makes me wonder why accessory makers weren’t as eager to capitalize on this by releasing their express cards at the same time. The speed of advancement in technology is so fast that it is inevitable that things like this will happen sometimes. However, it would be nice to see companies learn from this mistake and try to avoid similar ones in the future.