Sprint Nextel has announced an accelerated launch of EV-DO Revision A. The speedier 3G tech was supposed to start coming online in the first quarter of next year. Sprint plans to have its entire network upgraded to EV-DO revision A by the third quarter of 2007.

Last week Sprint successfully completed the first EV-DO Revision A data connection over the Sprint Power Vision network in San Diego, CA. This development combined with a series of other positive performance tests drove the decision to speed up the deployment plan. Additionally, Sprint 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.

Revision A gives EV-DO a speed boost, most noticeably on the upstream: