Current LTE Speeds

[FifaGuy]

Hi Guys

New to the forum so incase you guys never saw my introductory thread then hello to everybody.

I just need some advice or comparisons please, im in Cape Town, Bayview.

I recently took a LTE 36 Month contract after the salesman performed a home demo at my request. Im currently getting under 10Mbps down and just under 6Mbps upload. Latency is pretty good at 40ms nearly constant. Im not to impressed with the download speeds i expected much better considering the max speeds is being advertised as 90Mbps.

Am i expecting to much from LTE? My currently Vodacom contract matches the download speed only problem is that latency sucks for online gaming which is kinda important as my place dont have ADSL.

I had a LTE demo before i took out the contract and the speeds were always in excess of 20Mbps download and over 8Mbps Upload (performed 10 tests) with the demo sim the saleman brought along.

My two week cancellation ends this thursday so need to make my mind up real soon. I cannot see myself being locked into a three year contract that in theory is better than 3G but in reality for me appears the same bar the better latency.

If this is the normal speeds then I might purchase the modem cash and rather do a month to month contract.

Thanks Guys

 

[montanapark]

The maximum LTE speeds can only be achieved when the cell tower you're connecting to is all yours, almost like ADSL where you are the only user on your copper directly connected to the exchange.

With wireless you share the tower bandwidth with a lot of other users and data is multiplexed from all users onto the available channels.

If I'm not mistaken, Vodacom LTE is also still on 1.8GHz sharing some of the GSM (voice) bandwidth, hence it is not called a fully commercial LTE yet.

ICASA is holding them up with a spectrum license application. They're planning on going to 2.6GHz I think and then LTE should be superfast most of the time.

I'm getting different speeds throughout the day for the exact same reason. All depends on how busy the tower is.

Fastest I got was 16Mbps down and 10Mpbs up, but peak speeds are higher, so I reckon they bring you down a bit to prevent you depleting all the available channels in the spectrum they have. If they give everyone full speed, other users will not have any.

Average speeds I get are more like 7 down and 5 up.

 

[Jacques_mybb]

I am on the 3 year Telkom LTE contract and stay in Pretoria. My local speedtests are rarely below 25Mbps Down and 8Mbps Up with the ping constantly ~30ms. This is with full signal on the modem/router. Real world, my Steam downloads average 2.0 MB/s, torrents 1.5 MB/s and websites and phone/app updates load very fast.

 

[montanapark]

I am on the 3 year Telkom LTE contract and stay in Pretoria. My local speedtests are rarely below 25Mbps Down and 8Mbps Up with the ping constantly ~30ms. This is with full signal on the modem/router. Real world, my Steam downloads average 2.0 MB/s, torrents 1.5 MB/s and websites and phone/app updates load very fast.

Yep, Telkom LTE is on 2.3 GHz and have more spectrum than Vodacom LTE and they're not as busy also, so they can go faster for the time being.

I am on the edge of Telkom LTE coverage, so I cannot get a reliable signal even with outside aerials. I would have gone for their prepaid LTE since the larger data bundles can expire in 6-12 months. On Vodacom they all expire 30 days.

Just hope Telkom keep on delivering reliable service on wireless. Their ADSL track-record is a disaster.

I had to switch to wireless cos my ADSL line is down for 2 weeks everytime there's a lightning strike in my area.

 

[Azimuth]

I'm also on the cell edge but get full signal...go figure. I get up to 73Mbps but average 50Mbps+ on a desktop or laptop and 30Mbps+ on a phone over WiFi.

I'm on my third 60+60GB bundle now...

 

[Dave]

The maximum LTE speeds can only be achieved when the cell tower you're connecting to is all yours, almost like ADSL where you are the only user on your copper directly connected to the exchange.

With wireless you share the tower bandwidth with a lot of other users and data is multiplexed from all users onto the available channels.

If I'm not mistaken, Vodacom LTE is also still on 1.8GHz sharing some of the GSM (voice) bandwidth, hence it is not called a fully commercial LTE yet.

ICASA is holding them up with a spectrum license application. They're planning on going to 2.6GHz I think and then LTE should be superfast most of the time.

I'm getting different speeds throughout the day for the exact same reason. All depends on how busy the tower is.

Fastest I got was 16Mbps down and 10Mpbs up, but peak speeds are higher, so I reckon they bring you down a bit to prevent you depleting all the available channels in the spectrum they have. If they give everyone full speed, other users will not have any.

Average speeds I get are more like 7 down and 5 up.

Most of that is not correct, I use LTE on a network that also still runs on excess 1800Mhz GSM voice spectrum.

It already has 2 million LTE subscribers and I normally get 30-50Mbps down and 20-30Mbps up (even in the city centre during the working day), fastest I've seen is 75Mbps down and 35Mbps up.

If you are getting 3G type speeds on LTE it is a network restriction or defect.

 

[FifaGuy]

I'm also on the cell edge but get full signal...go figure. I get up to 73Mbps but average 50Mbps+ on a desktop or laptop and 30Mbps+ on a phone over WiFi.

I'm on my third 60+60GB bundle now...

That is insane speeds dude..

What is ur signal strength in dbm, do you no it off hand by any chance?

 

[FifaGuy]

Most of that is not correct, I use LTE on a network that also still runs on excess 1800Mhz GSM voice spectrum.

It already has 2 million LTE subscribers and I normally get 30-50Mbps down and 20-30Mbps up (even in the city centre during the working day), fastest I've seen is 75Mbps down and 35Mbps up.

If you are getting 3G type speeds on LTE it is a network restriction or defect.

What would you say is 3G speeds then, my 3G on Vodacom hovers between 5 and 10Mb but is unstable and ping is always over 150ms.

Telkom LTE average about 10Mb but is atleast stable with a between 20-30ms which is important for online gaming..

 

[Dave]

What would you say is 3G speeds then, my 3G on Vodacom hovers between 5 and 10Mb but is unstable and ping is always over 150ms.

Telkom LTE average about 10Mb but is atleast stable with a between 20-30ms which is important for online gaming..

Optimal 3G running on DC-HSDPA should be around 20Mbps down, ping should be under 100ms. Most networks using only HSPA should be running 5-8Mbps down.

 

[cavedog]

Optimal 3G running on DC-HSDPA should be around 20Mbps down, ping should be under 100ms. Most networks using only HSPA should be running 5-8Mbps down.

Uncongested Telkom Mobile tower can get you 12Mbps.... Also I notice that there is 1 vodacom 3G tower here in Richards bay in the cbd that does 20Mbps so yeah the DC-HSDPA towers are very scarce....

 

[Azimuth]

That is insane speeds dude..

What is ur signal strength in dbm, do you no it off hand by any chance?

Varies per antenna. LPDA without extension was -69dBm. With extension and total cable length of 10m, the signal strength dropped to -73dBm. This is the setup I got 73Mbps on.

Right now I'm running without an antenna and get -78dBm. No doubt about it but my signal strength has increased from 6 months ago. I used to get -103dBm without an antenna.

 

[RichardG]

Highly disappointed with this product! Either my router is faulty or something. Tried CELL C/Telkom Mobile - 3G 1 signal bar on both and 4G 1 signal. Did speedtest on 3G both, 4G - same speeds 5meg.

Huaweis-B601