MTN upgrades HSPA network speeds - South Africa

bealtine

MTN upgrades HSPA network speeds
Published: Wednesday 6 February 2008 | 03:45 PM CET


South African mobile operator MTN is upgrading download speeds on its HSDPA network to 3.6 Mbps, from 1.8 Mbps previously. Peak speeds of 7.2 Mbps are also available in certain areas and MTN expects to launch HSUPA, offering uplink speeds of up to 1.4 Mbps, in the near future. This will be rolled out countrywide using a phased approach, with key metropolitan areas getting the faster speeds first. MTN will shortly be launching the E270 USB modem, which is fully compatible with the new network speeds, while users of the E220 mini modem will need to upgrade their software. MTN's E800 data card is both 3.6 Mbps and 7.2 Mbps capable.

Sponge Bob

Voda owns MTN I believe and its good to see that Soweto is a better market for them than Kildare

First I heard of an E220 supporting HSUPA !

bealtine

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Voda owns MTN I believe and its good to see that Soweto is a better market for them than Kildare

First I heard of an E220 supporting HSUPA !

Just quoting...

It's always good to see those Africans powering ahead of us in the technology stakes.
FTTH (Algeria) and now HSUPA @ 7.2 Mbps in those places where continental scales are involved rather than like in our piddly little green sod.

Of course what do we get...another talking shop for failed regulators and regurgitated answers from the "Minister".
Cheap recycling, just say the same as the last Minister.

lynchie

bealtine wrote: »

MTN upgrades HSPA network speeds
Published: Wednesday 6 February 2008 | 03:45 PM CET


South African mobile operator MTN is upgrading download speeds on its HSDPA network to 3.6 Mbps, from 1.8 Mbps previously. Peak speeds of 7.2 Mbps are also available in certain areas and MTN expects to launch HSUPA, offering uplink speeds of up to 1.4 Mbps, in the near future. This will be rolled out countrywide using a phased approach, with key metropolitan areas getting the faster speeds first. MTN will shortly be launching the E270 USB modem, which is fully compatible with the new network speeds, while users of the E220 mini modem will need to upgrade their software. MTN's E800 data card is both 3.6 Mbps and 7.2 Mbps capable.

Vodafone in the UK are already offering 7.2Mbps in central London and in a few airports as well. Think they have been offering it since Nov 07

Wcool

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Voda owns MTN I believe and its good to see that Soweto is a better market for them than Kildare

Vodaphone owns half of Vodakom, other half is owned by the local incumbent Telkom.
MTN is on it's own (from Nigeria).

At the moment I am in Cape Town for a while and I can tell you that despite the interesting sounding speed, broadband is hopeless here.
It's probably one of the few countries in the world that is behind Ireland.

Vodakom is utterly useless and imho largely responsible for the total misery in the broadband market over here.

There are afaik, only 4 mayor fiber links to the rest of the world, all owned or partially owned by Telkom. Combine this with a monopoly and no LLU, prices for broadband are sky high. At first, the prices seem not to be too bad but the cap per month is ridiculously low (often starting at 500Mb with max of 5GB)

Here are some links:
http://www.telkom.co.za/athome/products/dsl/home_how_much.html

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Broadband/317.html

Quote from this link:
http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=6367
"In South Africa around half of all broadband connections are wireless which is mainly due to the high cost and poor service offerings in the fixed line space."

Myself, I am on a wireless technology called iBurst (funny enough this is the second time, I also had it in Australia).

The modem cost around 200 euro to buy (2nd hand) and speed is around 40Kbps (not really broadband). I pay 369 ZAR (1 month ago = 37 euro, now around 34 because the rand fell by 10 percent since the new year).
For 370 rand I get 1.2Gb per month data limit. Needless to say that much more than websurfing and email is out of the question. I use it mainly to connect to my Irish computer

http://www.iburst.co.za/default.aspx?link=products_packages

Prices for ADSL are slightly better and you get around 3Gb cap, but not very much better. And it takes around 6 months to get a phone line (Yes, it sounds VERY much like EIRCON 8 years ago).

Here's one more background links about Internet in Africa:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm

Because Internet is so expensive very few people have it outside work. Indeed it might well be that the mobile industry is going to break the ADSL market by offering competitive mobile data packages, but I don't see much change for the near future.