Sprint Nextel disappointed analysts with its earnings report for the second quarter yesterday. There are those who attribute its poor growth to the number three carrier's lack of pizzazz in its handset lineup, particularly when it comes to a dearth of hot new Motorola phones. That's about to change.

During Sprint's earning's call, Chief Operating Officer Len Lauer revealed the operator would soon start offering Moto's Q smartphone during the fourth quarter, in addition to the SLVR and that mightiest of ultra-slim phones, the 50-million strong RAZR. So consumers locked into a Sprint contract or unwilling to switch to another carrier, especially Verizon Wireless if they wanted a Q, will soon get their chance to see what the fuss is all about.

Of course, this still makes the Q a CDMA/EV-DO only affair, as both Sprint and competitor Verizon - the only other carrier to offer the Q right now - use these cellular-network standards. Customers of operators like Cingular in the U.S. and most international mobile operators, which leverage GSM standard and versions of UTMS technology for 3G, must still wait for news about when their Q day will arrive.

While it is well known that Motorola has a GSM/UMTS Q in the works for end-of-the-year deployment, it is not clear exactly when it will appear or where it'll ship first.

For more on the Motorola Q, see our review.

Faster 3G
Like Verizon, Sprint is in the process of rolling out a faster version of its EV-DO high-speed broadband network. Called EV-DO Revision (Rev.) A, the operator said yesterday it's deployment is ahead of schedule. So Sprint expects 40 million people will have EV-DO Rev. A coverage by the end of 2006.

The carrier already has an EV-DO network (Rev. 0) in place, of course, but the newer version will deliver faster data transfer speeds. EV-DO Rev. A offers average download speeds of 450 to 800 kbps with a theoretical maximum of 3.1 Mbps, and average upload speeds of 300 to 400 kbps. That's up from EV-D0 Rev. 0's 300-400 Kbps and 1.8 Mbps performance.

Sprint says it has been demonstrating applications such as all IP video telephony, high performance push-to-talk (walkie-talkie service), multi-user video conferencing, real time gaming and video streaming of both content and live web cams simultaneously with EV-DO Rev. A.

"We have taken this technology out of the laboratory and are currently integrating it into our network," said Kathy Walker, chief network officer at Sprint. "We are really pleased with the results and excited about rolling it out to our customers."

Sprint expects to complete this rollout by the third quarter of next year, eventually reaching 200 million people with the combined EV-DO Rev. A & 0 standards. EV-DO Rev. 0 is currently available to 150 million people in 219 major metropolitan areas.

EV-DO Rev. A devices will ship this fall, starting with connection cards offered in PCMCIA Type II, USB, and ExpressCard form factors. Compatible handsets should follow at a later unannounced date.