16k...32k...64k...???

[flipmo]

was wonderin...does the size of your simcard influence the speed of your connection...eg...will i get a higher speed with a 64k than with a 16k...???

btw...got a new hsdpa record yesterday...1136k!! lekke fast...but at R2 a meg...lekke expensive...

 

[AirWolf]

Afaik it doesn't affect connection speed but there might be a compatibility issue with some devices eg. A 64k Virgin sim doesn't work in data cards and you will require a 128k sim. The k refers to the storage space on the card for numbers and smss in kilobytes.

 

[vodacom3g]

was wonderin...does the size of your simcard influence the speed of your connection...eg...will i get a higher speed with a 64k than with a 16k...???

btw...got a new hsdpa record yesterday...1136k!! lekke fast...but at R2 a meg...lekke expensive...

No, the SIM size won't affect the speed.

Best I've ever seen on HSDPA was just over 1.7Mb/s!

 

[Syndyre]

Was that during testing or on a normal tower?

 

[flipmo]

i moved to a new suburb at the beginin of the month...the tower is aprox 2 kms from where i stay...i saw v3g mention sumthin bout makin all prepaid sims hsdpa compatible...maybe that was the reason for the speed boost....???

 

[vodacom3g]

Was that during testing or on a normal tower?

Normal tower, in Midrand. At home (outside official 3G coverage ), I get up to about 1.4Mb/s on 1 to 2 bars, but mostly around 700 - 800Kb/s.

 

[GreatBigMouth]

If you guys average 700 - 800kb/s, why pay such high prices for HSDPA? Get Iburst!

 

[Syndyre]

Normal tower, in Midrand. At home (outside official 3G coverage ), I get up to about 1.4Mb/s on 1 to 2 bars, but mostly around 700 - 800Kb/s.

Not bad outside official coverage though.

 

[Syndyre]

If you guys average 700 - 800kb/s, why pay such high prices for HSDPA? Get Iburst!

The nice thing about HSDPA though is you can get coverage basically anywhere, even if it isn't always high speed.

 

[GreatBigMouth]

At the end of 2007, 80% of South Africa will have Iburst coverage in their area. At the ongoing rate of 10 new towers a month, this goal will certainly be achieved by Iburst. Basically, in a year's time almost anyone will be able to get Iburst.

 

[vodacom3g]

If you guys average 700 - 800kb/s, why pay such high prices for HSDPA? Get Iburst!

Let's see; where I live:

IBurst - no coverage
myWireless - no coverage
MTN HSDPA - no coverage
Telkom ADSL - can't supply
MTN 3G - no coverage

So my options are:

Vodacom GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA
MTN GPRS/EDGE
Telkom ISDN

So, even if I had no relation with Vodacom, their HSDPA is the ONLY high(ish) connection available to me. Even though it's supposed to be a mobile solution, it outperforms all fixed line services purely because they're not available in the first place!

 

[aviator]

At the end of 2007, 80% of South Africa will have Iburst coverage in their area. At the ongoing rate of 10 new towers a month, this goal will certainly be achieved by Iburst. Basically, in a year's time almost anyone will be able to get Iburst.

Why wait till 2007 some time and hope that I have coverage from Iburst. Vodacom have had GPRS (all be it slow) at my house for the last 5 years at least and now for the last year to 18 months, they have had 3G/HSDPA. Iburst do not have coverage anywhere near my house. By the time they wake up and provide coverage in this area (before end 2007?) who knows what sort of speeds HSDPA will be capable of - may even be nearing it's theoritcal 14MBps. So whay wait for Iburst to wake up when I can use HSDPA - even if it does cost a bit more!

 

[vodacom3g]

Why wait till 2007 some time and hope that I have coverage from Iburst. Vodacom have had GPRS (all be it slow) at my house for the last 5 years at least and now for the last year to 18 months, they have had 3G/HSDPA. Iburst do not have coverage anywhere near my house. By the time they wake up and provide coverage in this area (before end 2007?) who knows what sort of speeds HSDPA will be capable of - may even be nearing it's theoritcal 14MBps. So whay wait for Iburst to wake up when I can use HSDPA - even if it does cost a bit more!

By end 2007, we will have at least 3.6Mb/s.

 

[Syndyre]

Can the current cards support that?

 

[vodacom3g]

Can the current cards support that?

The Huawei E220 USB modem can and the new PCI-X card supports 7.2Mb/s.

 

[Syndyre]

Impressive speeds.

 

[GreatBigMouth]

Why wait till 2007 some time and hope that I have coverage from Iburst. Vodacom have had GPRS (all be it slow) at my house for the last 5 years at least and now for the last year to 18 months, they have had 3G/HSDPA. Iburst do not have coverage anywhere near my house. By the time they wake up and provide coverage in this area (before end 2007?) who knows what sort of speeds HSDPA will be capable of - may even be nearing it's theoritcal 14MBps. So whay wait for Iburst to wake up when I can use HSDPA - even if it does cost a bit more!

OK, let's just get our facts straight. Vodacom has been around for more than 12 years now, and they use their EXISTING towers which they built up over 12 years time to provide 3G/HSDPA coverage. Iburst has only been in SA for about 2 years, and they are growing rapidly! You suggest that you'll be getting faster speeds? Remember that faster speeds come at even HIGHER prices! Also, if they can't even supply the current 1.8mb/s speed to their users, do you really think they'll be able to supply more? It's not about Iburst waking up, it's about giving them time. Can you imagine where they would be if they've been around as long as Vodacom has?

 

[Neo]

Can you imagine where they would be if they've been around as long as Vodacom has?

Probably out of business.

Make no mistake, iBurst in SA (as a company) is coming around but unfortunately the technology is all wrong, or rather have a limited future.

Although the spectral efficiency is good, there is little world-wide acceptance for the technology with very few networks deployed around the world.

With the migration to OFDM, together with the massive footprints already deployed plus the bulk of the subscribers, the logical path for the next 5 to 10 years is with the current mobile network operators.

Not me saying this, read any of the better reports on mobile technologies.

If iBurst SA is still around in 5 years, it will be on WiMax.

 

[ic]

OK, let's just get our facts straight. Vodacom has been around for more than 12 years now, and they use their EXISTING towers which they built up over 12 years time to provide 3G/HSDPA coverage. Iburst has only been in SA for about 2 years, and they are growing rapidly! You suggest that you'll be getting faster speeds? Remember that faster speeds come at even HIGHER prices! Also, if they can't even supply the current 1.8mb/s speed to their users, do you really think they'll be able to supply more? It's not about Iburst waking up, it's about giving them time. Can you imagine where they would be if they've been around as long as Vodacom has?

I'm not sure what you are trying to say or prove there.

Firstly, let's examine the mean of "tower(s)" [aka base-station(s)] - what is a tower or base-station? - well there is usually a mast which is essentially a tall pole, and attached to each mast is radio network equipment [antennas etc], then there is a housing at the base for electrical & backup power, and usually also equipment for interfacing with one or more backhaul links...

Secondly, on just about every mast, one would find 2G|2.5G [GSM] radio transmitters & receivers that are GPRS|EDGE capable] and separate 3.5G [HSDPA] radio transmitters & receivers. The point is that the HSDPA equipment is newer technology and different from the GSM equipment, and was [mostly] added to existing masts [although new mast have obviously been rolled out as well].

It's not like Vodacom [or for that matter MTN] could magically transform GSM into 3G|HSDPA, these are separate networks, with different signal distribution footprints - even though Vodacom's GSM and HSDPA equipment mostly share the same physical masts or cell towers.

 

[GreatBigMouth]

Ic, I understand what you are saying, but that's exactly what I was talking about. They are using their existing towers to plant 3G/HSDPA devices. Those towers didn't appear overnight. It took them a long time to get there.

Neo, Iburst are already discussing the matter of using WiMax for the future. In 5 years time, they won't be using the Iburst technology anymore, since I think the limit on it is 2mb/s.