Whatever is registering 0 versus A clearly is either not taking input for the difference, not updating what it displays, or is meaningless.
That might be the best explanation, but it's hard to know.
Gnok31's results above seem to indicate that the info display simply does not differentiate between the two.
Have a look at this Wikipedia page on
EVDO.
Note a couple things: first, it claims that Verizon's US network is 100% converted to EVDO-A.
Second, and more importantly, note that EVDO-A is superset-compatible with EVDO-0, and that
neither one of them guarantee a specific bandwidth - the handset looks at the tower (forward) signal and that info is used to set the modulation format within a single short (1.667 mS) time-slot. Factor in congestion within the cell, and the measured throughput over many seconds might be relatively slow, even if each time slot is modulated at the fastest possible rate (that is, each mobile doesn't get the maximum number of timeslots that it would otherwise get if there were no other users in the cell).
So, measuring a slow throughput over many seconds isn't conclusive as to whether or not EVDO-A modulation/rate is being used - you might just be measuring cell congestion. OTOH, if you have a really good signal, say -73 dBm, perhaps the thing to do is to run your throughput tests at 4am... and only if you have a strong signal - and also only if you are sure the remote server can spit things at you faster than 3 Mbits/s.
I measured a 50 Mbyte download just now - 491 seconds. That works out to roughly 834 kbits/sec - my phone reports EVDO-0. (-73 to -81 dBm).
HTH
eu1
BTW, for what it's worth: I looked at my battery report immediately before and immediately after that long download: 94% starting, 91% ending. This isn't very scientific, but assuming that a fully charged battery could do 33 of those downloads ( 100% / 3% = 33 ), that would be 33*491 seconds = 4.5 hours. That's certainly in the "ballpark" of the Eris' advertised talk time of 3.6 hours; alternatively, if you assume that the Eris' battery has an energy capacity of 5.2 Watt-hours (1300 mAh * 4v), that sort of indicates that my handset was dissipating about 1.2 Watts during the download.
The moral of that story is that a typical WiFi radio in a AP client only uses a fraction of that power - maybe 200 mW or thereabouts.... so, if you can use WiFi instead of the Verizon Mobile Network - you'll save yourself some battery time.