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So the chances are 99% of all current 3G contract users will have to buy this card cash as no one's contract will be upgradable before at minimum Dec 2006.

I'm just wondering what Voda's marketing strategy will be? Will this be aimed at new customers [people who have not signed up yet] only? Or will there actually be some sort of movement to get current 3G users to go over to HSDPA too?
 
Are the networks able to handle folks connected at 2Meg end to end? If not what is the advantage of HSDPA?
 
diabolus said:
So the chances are 99% of all current 3G contract users will have to buy this card cash as no one's contract will be upgradable before at minimum Dec 2006.

I'm just wondering what Voda's marketing strategy will be? Will this be aimed at new customers [people who have not signed up yet] only? Or will there actually be some sort of movement to get current 3G users to go over to HSDPA too?
Click to expand...

Any news on this?
 
Mmmm... okay, unless Vodacom has absolutely no 3G towers in Pretoria Central to Pretoria East, the cellid thing doesn't seem to work. :-(

I bought a Vodacom prepaid yesterday and spent most of the morning walking and driving around waiting to find Vodacom "3G Enabled" cellid info to display on my phone. Got nothing, but, whenever (and actually "wherever" too) I plugged in my MTN card, I got "Y'ello Broadband".

Am I doing it wrong? From the different postings to these Forums, it seems that Vodacom has got slightly more patchy but faster connections and MTN has got, shall I use the word "ubiquitous" :-P coverage, but slower?

Right or wrong?
 
Is there a way I can force my Nokia 6680 to use a 3G signal. At home I don’t get a consistent 3G signal. I’ve heard of netmonitor but as I understand it is a “hidden feature” and may not even be installed on the phone.
 
Tallboy said:
Is there a way I can force my Nokia 6680 to use a 3G signal. At home I don’t get a consistent 3G signal. I’ve heard of netmonitor but as I understand it is a “hidden feature” and may not even be installed on the phone.
Click to expand...

Download the app from here:
http://www.symbian-freak.com/quides/netmon.htm

Install the .sis file on your phone using pc suite. In the manager on your phone you have to set the phone to accept software installations or permissions (or something like that, I can't remember now) otherwise it won't install fully.

Once installed there will be a "test" menu on your phone. Scroll to menu 81-1 in test and change the value there to 2 which is WCDMA only.

As netmonitor or test menu only gives GSM signal strengths, there's also a 3G signal monitor called celltrack. Download the sis file here:

http://www.afischer-online.de/sos/celltrack/
 
simsam7 said:
Mmmm... okay, unless Vodacom has absolutely no 3G towers in Pretoria Central to Pretoria East, the cellid thing doesn't seem to work. :-(

I bought a Vodacom prepaid yesterday and spent most of the morning walking and driving around waiting to find Vodacom "3G Enabled" cellid info to display on my phone. Got nothing, but, whenever (and actually "wherever" too) I plugged in my MTN card, I got "Y'ello Broadband".

Am I doing it wrong? From the different postings to these Forums, it seems that Vodacom has got slightly more patchy but faster connections and MTN has got, shall I use the word "ubiquitous" :-P coverage, but slower?

Right or wrong?
Click to expand...

I have yet to see the words '3g enabled' on my phone. Saw it down at the coast though but not in Pretoria central. Sammy Marks tower is full 3 g and it rocks though.
 
HSDPA availability

V3G,

Any concrete ideas floating around Vodacom yet on release date for HSDPA; also what cards are likely to be offered and ballpark costs?

Bruce
 
The trail network is going live as we speak. Although the commercial launch is slated for somewhere in December, we'll probably see commercial rollout only ramping up in Q1-2006, mostly driven by data card availability.

Expect the data cards to be around the same price bracket as the current 3G ones. I need to check on brand names but suspect it will be the Option cards.
 
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Thanks, V3G. You guys have been so quiet about 3G on steroids that I'd begun to suspect the latter part of 2006 as possible launch date despite knowing that Vodacom has done a lot of work on the towers already. If you could "persuade" the techies to really try to smash the smashboard software I think we might appreciate that as it has been a major irritation with many of us with the 3G release.

Bruce
 
HSDPA data cards will be available before HSDPA phones.Currently no handset maker has a HSDPA phone.But we should start seeing them in the middle of 2006.
 
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bruceahibbert said:
If you could "persuade" the techies to really try to smash the smashboard software I think we might appreciate that as it has been a major irritation with many of us with the 3G release.
Click to expand...

It's pretty much up to the suppliers now, the network is ready, it only needs to load the new software (to be supplied by the network vendor) and get the cards (supplied by the card manufacturers) into the user community.
 
High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is a packet-based data service in W-CDMA downlink with data transmission up to 8-10 Mbps (and 20 Mbps for MIMO systems) over a 5MHz bandwidth in WCDMA downlink. HSDPA implementations includes Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), Hybrid Automatic Request (HARQ), fast cell search, and advanced receiver design.

In 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) standards, Release 4 specifications provide efficient IP support enabling provision of services through an all-IP core network and Release 5 specifications focus on HSDPA to provide data rates up to approximately 10 Mbps to support packet-based multimedia services. MIMO systems are the work item in Release 6 specifications, which will support even higher data transmission rates up to 20 Mbps. HSDPA is evolved from and backward compatible with Release 99 WCDMA systems.
 
one ques:
When this comes out ... will current contract package guys be given an option to upgrade to hsdpa before contract end , or will we need to wait out our 2 years , and then up our contracts??
 
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