Since the launch of ADSL in late 2002 South African consumers have asked for higher speeds to ensure that they do not find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide.  Telkom have upgraded their ADSL speeds three times since 2002, with the latest upgrade bumping up a small portion of their users to 10 Mbps.

Telkom’s ADSL speed upgrade brings South Africa closer to international standards in terms of fixed line broadband speeds, but with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) becoming the new norm in the developed world South Africa continues to lag behind many first world countries.

South Africa’s mobile broadband services are however of the most advanced in the world.  Vodacom, MTN and Cell C have established 21 Mbps HSPA+ networks – in line with most developed nations.

Last mile access – in this case a radio access network – is however only one aspect of a wireless broadband network, and inadequate transmission capacity or a shortage of international bandwidth can easily spoil the party for 21 Mbps HSPA+ users.

Internationally the real world speeds of mobile broadband subscribers have come under fire from consumers.

Research in the UK by Broadband Genie in late 2009 revealed that the average speed is only 0.87Mbits/sec a far cry from the reported advertised speeds of between 3.6 Mbps and 14 Mbps.

Another research project in the UK, this time by Epitiro, shows that the average mobile broadband speed in the UK clocked in at 0.9 Mbps (Megabits per second). The fastest 20 test agents recorded an average speed of 1.8 Mbps.

Similar results were achieved in the US.  Results from research conducted by PC World in late 2009 showed that the real average speed of mobile broadband services in the US was below 1 Mbps.

At the time the performance of Vodacom’s and MTN’s mobile broadband services already outperformed their counterparts in the US and UK, and this trend seems to continue. 

While investigating the recent Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (ASA) ruling related to Vodacom’s broadband claims, MyBroadband received test data from the last four months from Vodacom’s broadband speed tests across the cellular providers’ full network, and the results were encouraging.

A rough break down of results show that the majority of Vodacom’s mobile data subscribers experience speeds of between 1 Mbps and 8 Mbps, in line with what one would expect from an HSDPA network.

Another bit of good news is that around 1% of tests showed speeds in excess of 8 Mbps.  These tests were likely conducted in areas where Vodacom has 21 Mbps HSPA+ support.

Around 7% of users got speeds of around 256 Kbps which is understandable considering that Vodacom does not have HSDPA coverage throughout the country.  These users may well have conducted the tests in areas where only GPRS/EDGE coverage was available.

Despite the fact that these results are on-net, it gives a strong indication that local mobile broadband subscribers are experiencing more favourable speeds than their international counterparts.

Vodacom’s real broadband speeds << comments and views