Vodacom 21 Mbps HSPA+ tested

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys last week surprised the media when he announced that the cellular provider has switched on its first 21 Mbps HSPA+ (aka Evolved High-Speed Packet Access) site in Midrand, with plans to extend the coverage to areas ‘where it makes sense’.

The Vodacom CEO added that all Vodacom HSDPA subscribers will be upgraded to 7.2 Mbps speeds, with plans to have the full Vodacom network 14.4 Mbps enabled for the World Cup. Uys said that around 100 sites will be 14.4 Mbps enabled by the end of March, but highlighted that transmission capacity remains a significant challenge in the rollout of these higher speeds.

21 Mbps HSPA+ live testing

MyBroadband tested Vodacoms 21 Mbps HSPA+ network, and the results were encouraging. For the testing a Huawei K4505 data card – which is commercially available in South Africa was used. Other data cards which are also HSPA+ capable and available in South Africa include the ZTE K4505-Z and the Huawei E182.

Downlink speeds in the live testing environment peaked at around 14.6 Mbps, significantly lower than the 21.1 Mbps theoretical peak rate of the network. Vodacoms Executive Director for Engineering and Technology, Andries Delport however explains that this is not unexpected, and that factors like the distance from the base station have a big impact on the actual throughput of the service.

In testing where the modem was right next to the base station downlink speeds flat-lined at just over 21 Mbps, clearly showing that the network is capable of the promised speeds. Consumers should however not expect these speeds, unless they use the service in very close proximity to the base station.

Uplink speeds were around 2 Mbps, again far below the theoretical limit of 5.76 Mbps. The reason for the relatively slow speed was that indoor testing was performed which only allowed for half that speed as there was only a single branch (as opposed to a dual branch which allows for full speeds) in the building.

During the testing a large file was downloaded via FTP, a speed test was performed and a high definition video was streamed, and the performance was stable with smooth streaming of the video and a speed test performance of 8 Mbps.

One of the most impressive aspects of the new HSPA+ service was the low latency. On-net latency ranged between 20ms and 30ms, with ping times to the MyBroadband service (on the MTN network) ranging between 25ms and 40ms. International latency was equally impressive with ping times to Google.com ranging between 200ms and 210ms.

The latency and overall performance of the network is suitable for online gaming, and the Vodacom engineers pointed out that they could not find any online games which could even start to stress the new HSPA+ network.

Vodacom network readiness

Delport said that the Huawei based portion of their network in Gauteng and Mpumalanga is ready to be upgraded to HSPA+ while the Alcatel portion of their network in the Western Cape has to wait for a fully commercial version of the required software.

The rest of the Vodacom network, which is using a Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) radio network, is more challenging to upgrade to HSPA+, but Delport said that it is possible and that they expect thenecessary software from NSN in March.

While no details are available yet about the new broadband services planned by Vodacom, the company said that consumers can expect an announcement regarding this issue within the next month.

Vodacom 21 Mbps HSPA+ – comments and views