LTE Modems ???

Duan said:
Jola,

Thanks for the advice. I am planning on getting the Huawei E392u-22 to use with a Mikrotik 433UHA.

I hope that works. I have the CellC Giga 200 package and although CellC has not yet rolled out LTE (at least not where I live) I figured I would try to future proof as much as I can at this stage.

The biggest challenge is where to buy the E392u-22 here in Joburg. I would appreciate any advice.
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If you already have a 3G stick I wouldn't bother buying an LTE one. You aren't going to really enjoy the benefits for some time to come, by which stage the sticks will be half the price they are now. No need to jump on the bandwagon, as there isn't really much of a wagon w.r.t. LTE just yet.. But if you need a new stick I suppose its not the worst choice.
 
Smart move by 8ta

When I first realised 8ta was on a mission all on their own with TDD 2300 and my current E3276 won’t work with 8ta I was not to impressed.

BUT after reading quite a bit it is clear that their LTE network should significantly outperform the competition.
 
1. They have 60MHz of spectrum compared to the 20MHz of the competition.
2. The competition uses FDD which doesn’t allow more emphasis on download whereas 8ta uses TDD which can.
3. If I understand it correctly LTE also needs a whole 20MHz for either uplink or downlink to work properly but the competition must split their available spectrum for uplink/downlink which 8ta doesn’t have to.
 
MtnUser said:
1. They have 60MHz of spectrum compared to the 20MHz of the competition.
2. The competition uses FDD which doesn’t allow more emphasis on download whereas 8ta uses TDD which can.
3. If I understand it correctly LTE also needs a whole 20MHz for either uplink or downlink to work properly but the competition must split their available spectrum for uplink/downlink which 8ta doesn’t have to.
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Interesting, thanks.

Although, as with 3G, HSPA+, etc. it's probably going to boil down to who has the best price/performance in your area.

Edit: A possible downside of going for a Telkom 2300MHz TDD modem is it may not work with the other networks, so you won't be able to simply swap SIM cards.
 
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MtnUser said:
If I understand it correctly LTE also needs a whole 20MHz for either uplink or downlink to work properly but the competition must split their available spectrum for uplink/downlink which 8ta doesn’t have to.
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Not true. Different things is band allocation for the operator (you can check it with ICASA) and cell bandwith. Band allocation matches requirements for GSM/3G (has been assigned sometime ago for these technologies), so upload/download ratio should be the same (unless different modulation method for down/up changes this factor)
Cell bandwith in LTE is not fixed to 20MHz, it can be defined as follows: 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20MHz, separately for download and upload channels. Advantage of TDE is that this ratio can be adjusted dynamically - on demand, but TDE presents different technical chalenges.
 
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You are right; it will work (properly) with 2x 10MHz channels. Just my definition of “properly” is maximum speed. In my books anything less than maximum is not functioning properly :-)
 
I have ordered an E392 that supports TDD 2300MHz, specifically for 8ta (from eBay, USD99 including shipping)

Hopefully 8ta will have launched their service before the modem arrives.
 
MtnUser said:
You are right; it will work (properly) with 2x 10MHz channels. Just my definition of “properly” is maximum speed. In my books anything less than maximum is not functioning properly :-)
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When you have an option to allocate one 20MHz cell and get horrible interference between towers, you will use 2 10MHz cells instead to achieve maximum throuput in the area, correct? :)
 
Jola said:
I have ordered an E392 that supports TDD 2300MHz, specifically for 8ta (from eBay, USD99 including shipping)

Hopefully 8ta will have launched their service before the modem arrives.
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Jola have you tried a prepaid sim in that modem to know if its able to use LTE or not?
Wondering if it's only the contract sims enabled to use it or not.

*EDIT*
Maybe i found the answer already in the 60+60 T&C's
13. This offer will only be offered on Telkom Mobile 3G network and the subscriber will not be able to roam on MTN’s network or Telkom Mobile LTE network.
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http://www.8ta.com/plans/prepaid-data/60gbpromo/

Telkom forcing customers to contract for LTE - no thanks
 
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