7.2 Mbps HSDPA gaining ground

ic said:
Forget about what Huawei.com says, the E220 can be firmware upgraded to support a maximum HSDPA downlink speed of 7.2Mbits/s, however the E220 cannot be firmware upgraded to an HSUPA modem, the E220 is still an HSDPA modem.3.6Mbits/s is simply the speed reported by Windoze, and not the speed you actually get when connected to Vodacom's or MTN's HSDPA networks - although Vodacom's entire HSDPA network was upgraded to 3.6Mbits/s HSDPA quite a few months back [July 2007 IIRC], both Vodacom and MTN are waiting for Telkodemonopolies to provide enough backhaul capacity to cope with the increased bandwidth demands of 3.6Mbits/s HSDPA.Virgin Mobile uses CellC's network, and CellC only has GPRS & EDGE, CellC does not have an HS[D]PA network, which is why you're getting GPRS from CellC - although you should be able to get EDGE from some of CellC's base-stations - obviously not in your area though.
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Good points.
 
I was shocked to see the coverage Vodacom HSDPA has in SA. Telkom will never be out of customers if the coverage is this bad.
http://www.vodamap.net/3g/
With this amount of coverage HSDPA's got a long way to go. It makes Sentech's coverage seems good!
 
ic said:
Forget about what Huawei.com says, the E220 can be firmware upgraded to support a maximum HSDPA downlink speed of 7.2Mbits/s, however the E220 cannot be firmware upgraded to an HSUPA modem, the E220 is still an HSDPA modem....
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Do you have a source for this claim? I was led to believe the E220 had already been upgraded to 3.6 from 1.8 and there was simply not enough memory space to support an upgrade, hence the release of a larger sized E270/E272. I sense this is some sort of unofficial 'hack'.
 
Gotta be honest and say I don't really see how its going to make a difference. MTN and Vodacom allow 3.6 that I will notice, but 7.2 ?!? .. currently one has to be conservative with bandwidth :( .. going at 1.8!

Place where it will be cool is for torrents! Going at 7.2 that'll be insane! :) Take like 3mins for a 200meg torrent.
 
gpe said:
Gotta be honest and say I don't really see how its going to make a difference. MTN and Vodacom allow 3.6 that I will notice, but 7.2 ?!? .. currently one has to be conservative with bandwidth :( .. going at 1.8!
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One has to allow for future redundancy. No point in buying old hardware, even if our networks are in the slooow lane.
 
Skeptik said:
ic said:
Forget about what Huawei.com says, the E220 can be firmware upgraded to support a maximum HSDPA downlink speed of 7.2Mbits/s, however the E220 cannot be firmware upgraded to an HSUPA modem, the E220 is still an HSDPA modem....
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Do you have a source for this claim?
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Yes, I do, and it has also been confirmed by Huawei - v3g mentioned it at the MyBroadband Conference last year, and Brian Seligmann called Huawei from the conference to confirm it.
Skeptik said:
I was led to believe the E220 had already been upgraded to 3.6 from 1.8
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The Huawei E220 was always a 3.6Mbits/s downlink and 384kbits/s uplink HSDPA modem, it never needed to be "upgraded" from 1.8Mbits/s to 3.6Mbits/s.
Skeptik said:
and there was simply not enough memory space to support an upgrade, hence the release of a larger sized E270/E272. I sense this is some sort of unofficial 'hack'.
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There are 2 different types of on-board memory that the E220 modems have: Firmware and 'Flash-Stick'. I don't know what the exact size of either is, but I suspect the Flash-Stick memory is a bit on the small side [something like 15MB] but only the installation drivers & dashboard s/w are stored in the Flash-Stick memory. The firmware is a completely independent entity and is where the modem's own 'operating system' is stored and runs from. It is the firmware that will need to be changed to support a downlink HSDPA speed of 7.2Mbits/s.

WARNING: do not try installing 7.2Mbits/s downlink firmware versions on an E220 that have not been approved by Vodacom or MTN, rather wait for 7.2Mbits/s and the associated E220 firmware update from Vodacom or MTN.
 
ic said:
The Huawei E220 USB HSDPA modem is capable of 7.2Mbits/s downlink and 384kbits/s uplink, and yes I did mean the E220.
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the E220 is only rated @ 3.6Mbps this is from huawei website, but this is more then enough as vodacom only give speeds up to 1.8Mbps and this are under perfect conditions
 
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