This statement confuses average throughput with peak. The average downlink throughputs for MTN and Vodacom, as determined in the MyBroadband 2007 Wireless Broadband Report are around 600 kbits/s and 700 kbits/s respectively. It is against these figures that Neotel's figure of up to 700 kbits/s needs to be compared.
Neotel is using CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev A, which is capable of 3.1 Mbits/s (peak) downlink, and 1.8 Mbits/s (peak) uplink. [Compare these figures to the 3.6 Mbit/s peak downlink and 384 kbit/s peak uplink for HSDPA in South Africa.]
The average Neotel downlink performance of up to 700 kbits/s is therefore very similar to HSDPA. On EV-DO Rev A, the average uplink performance is much better than HSDPA, and is better compared to HSUPA (which has not been launched in South Africa).
I accept your point where it applies to international and peak times in the evenings, however locally Vodacom's HSDPA generally far exceeds 700kbits/s on the downlink, and is fairly constant on the uplink near the current 384kbits/s maximum for HSDPA.
Much the same probably applies to MTN - except that MTN still limits the uplink of its HSDPA to 64kbits/s.
Also, if it weren't for Telkodemonopolies' incompetence where backhaul links are concerned, Vodacom would have been able to rollout 7.2Mbits/s downlink and ~2Mbits/s uplink HSUPA - basically skipping 3.6Mbits/s HSDPA altogether. MTN is likely to be in the same boat as far as 7.2 is concerned.
My point is that by sometime in 2009 Vodacom & MTN will be far ahead of NeeTel's CDMA2000 EV-DO implementation, CDMA2000 using 800MHz will cover much larger areas with fewer base-stations compared to HSPA using 2.1GHz, but NeeTel should be deploying CDMA2000 for rural areas and simultaneously deploying WiMax for its broadband target market, instead NeeTel is still evaluating WiMax vendors & equipment and continues to evangelize CDMA2000 like it's some sort of new religion.
In addition to the air interface, the backhaul network makes a big difference, which explains the difference between Vodacom and MTN above. Neotel's backhaul is their own backbone fibre network, since they are not dependent on Telkom as Vodacom and MTN still are, to a very large extent.
I agree to an extent - just remember that NeeTel does not actually own the Infraco backbone - NeeTel rents that from Infraco with a 4 year exclusivity deal, in addition to the other 700km of fibre optic that NeeTel has of its own so far which AFAIK is part of 1300km purchased directly from Transtel & Eskom.
Another point I would like to make, is that NeeTel only has about 130 testers using its CDMA2000, and if their average downlink speed only peaks at 700kbits/s, then there is potentially something seriously wrong since Vodacom and MTN combined have about 250000 customers using their HSDPA networks, what happens when NeeTel's CDMA2000 customer numbers scale upwards from 130 - will the service become highly contended?
Fast!
