Gautrain mobile speed shootout

[Newsfeed]

Gautrain mobile speed shootout

Thousands of passengers use the Gautrain every day, and most of them spend the trip on their smartphones browsing websites, reading mail, and communicating.

Good cellular coverage is therefore needed for these commuters to enjoy a good online experience, which is a challenge along a route with many underground tunnels.

 

[MrG]

I thought there was gunfire on the Gautrain with that headline. ^_^

 

[grok]

Those blackout spots are actually more important than the speed you're getting where you do actually have signal..

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

didn't they just get femtocells installed at all the stations?

remember they made a big deal when one was able to get calls at platform level in Sandton station.

 

[Aquila ka Hecate]

didn't they just get femtocells installed at all the stations?

remember they made a big deal when one was able to get calls at platform level in Sandton station.

I don't know about that.
At the bus level, signal is always sketchy and slow and has been for three years.

 

[Napalm2880]

I thought there was gunfire on the Gautrain with that headline. ^_^

Same. For a second I thought I was on News24!

 

[Ho3n3r]

Signal faults, signal faults everywhere!

 

[MrGray]

didn't they just get femtocells installed at all the stations?

remember they made a big deal when one was able to get calls at platform level in Sandton station.

Yes, there was a lot of fanfare about this roughly a year ago. Except I haven't seen any evidence of this apart from on the Sandton platform to ORT.

 

[jannievanzyl]

The tunnels and underground platforms were actually the first place we could do 3CC (3 x Carrier Aggregation) deployed as there were (by definition) no interference from neighboring cells.

On the underground platforms you can get up to 220Mb/s and - like these tests - on the train, while moving, up to 200Mb/s.

From a technology perspective, it's actually amazing that you can have a wireless connection, underground, moving at 160Km/h at 200Mb/s.

/And yes, I know the normal haters that must always try and find a "cool" and "hip" comeback will now attack my statement. But it's still cool that we can build stuff like this.

 

[cavedog]

The tunnels and underground platforms were actually the first place we could do 3CC (3 x Carrier Aggregation) deployed as here was (by definition) no interference from neighboring cells.

On the underground platforms you can get up to 220Mb/s and - like these tests - on the train, while moving, up to 200Mb/s.

From a technology perspective, it's actually amazing that you can have a wireless connection, underground, at 160Km/h at 200Mb/s.

/And yes, I know the normal haters that must always try and find a "cool" and "hip" comeback will now attack my statement. But it's still cool that we can build stuff like this.

Very nice indeed. I saw the 3 carrier aggregation with Both MTN and Vodacom with speeds of over 155Mbps...

3CA On Vodacom. Band 1 some refarmed 3G spectrum and Band 8 from 2G I presume.

The 3CA configuration changes in terms of spectrum for example at Menlyn Mall in PTA East B3 is 10, B8 is 5 and B1 is 5 so I'm assuming they would rather have that extra on the 2G and 3G technology that remove more from there to add to LTE as that will slow 3G down.

 

[jannievanzyl]

Very nice indeed. I saw the 3 carrier aggregation with Both MTN and Vodacom with speeds of over 155Mbps...

3CA On Vodacom. Band 1 some refarmed 3G spectrum and Band 8 from 2G I presume.

The 3CA configuration changes in terms of spectrum for example at Menlyn Mall in PTA East B3 is 10, B8 is 5 and B1 is 5 so I'm assuming they would rather have that extra on the 2G and 3G technology that remove more from there to add to LTE as that will slow 3G down.

Yup, external factors, reuse, device type and density will change the assignment in every location.

 

[genetic]

The tunnels and underground platforms were actually the first place we could do 3CC (3 x Carrier Aggregation) deployed as there were (by definition) no interference from neighboring cells.

On the underground platforms you can get up to 220Mb/s and - like these tests - on the train, while moving, up to 200Mb/s.

From a technology perspective, it's actually amazing that you can have a wireless connection, underground, moving at 160Km/h at 200Mb/s.

Very cool indeed! Latency is pretty impressive too.