Vodafone's reign as the cellular speed king courtesy of the High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) upgrade lasted about six months in New Zealand.

Telecom's roll-out of the Alcatel Lucent supplied Evolution Data Only (EV-DO) Rev A upgrade (yes I know, nasty cellular technology acronyms...) has started, in Auckland only for now, and yes, it's faster.

I was given quick preview of the technology at Telecom's Auckland HQ; bearing in mind that we're talking about cellular broadband technology, it's hard not to be impressed by Rev A. Download speeds hit 2.6Mbit/s and uploads ran in the 5-600kbit/s range. Better yet, latency or the delay it takes to send and receive data packets, has dropped to 50-70ms.

That's DSL-like performance, in other words.

Here's the new Telecom Mobile Broadband Rev A card in the hands of Gary Rogers, Telecom's mobile data solutions manager:

The card is in fact a Sierra 595 Type II PCMCIA job. Telecom says there are more devices coming up including a Vodem-like USB "modem", plus an Express Card for people like Mac users who have the newest add-on card slot on their portables.

Telecom is still working on the device roadmap so no word on what'll appear in terms of handsets yet.

Pricing for the Rev A card is the same as for the Rev 0 EV-DO one, that is, $529 plus GST on an open plan, and bundled with 12 month or longer contracts.

For the time being, the coverage area is very limited - Auckland CBD only. The rest of the country will get Rev A progressively around middle of next year however.

I'm waiting for my card to arrive later this afternoon, so that I can test it more thoroughly. However, the first look tells me Rev A will attractive for business users who need that extra bit of performance on the uplink. How succesful the service will be against Vodafone's HSDPA depends on Telecom's marketing savvy: I floated a few what I thought were obvious ideas like bumping up the data plans and bundling the card with fixed-line DSL, but Telecom didn't seem quite sure about the approach yet.

I'm sure someone will say that HSDPA/UMTS is better for roaming, and it is because GSM operators with the W-CDMA upgrade are everywhere. However, only a very rich person or a financially reckless one would data roam with any cellular operator, so it's only an advantage on paper. (Tangent: I'm disgusted to see how so many media picked up on the linked Computerworld story WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION - and they can't even copy and paste properly, getting their figures wrong.)