For business customers looking to enhance their wireless wide-area Internet access, EV-DO Rev. A shows significant speed improvements over Rev. 0. Not to be outdone, Sprint issued salvos from its side of the fence today, as well.

Verizon Wireless announced today the first handful of markets that have received the Rev. A upgrade and they include Boston and its environs, portions of Southern Florida and Utah, as well as areas in and around Chicago and Gary, Indiana. The launch was preceded this morning by news of a Rev. A network card that will be provided by Novotel Wireless. My only question is, what took so long?

Sprint lit up its first Revision A networks back in October 2006 and has been rolling them out steadily over the last few months. With this and Cingular's HSDPA market continuing to make strides in the U.S., it's surprising that Verizon Wireless didn't announce Revision A markets earlier. Too bad that customers will have to wait until the end of this month to get their hands on the Rev. A card from Verizon and Novotel.

Sprint, of course, is issuing salvos from its side of the fence. According to its announcements today, it has boosted the speed of its Rev. A network. Sprint now is boasting that users can expect to see upload speeds of 350 to 500 Kbps and download speeds of 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps. Real-world users, let us know if that's your experience!