Realistic 43Mbps HSPA+ speeds

Let's hope woosh extends it's 3G coverage rather than roam on Vodafone's GPRS. It is hugely irritating to only succeed in doing a bank transfer after three time-outs
 
Much rather would have woken to a article on Pippa Middleton - not too shabby... Is she single?
 
distance from the tower, whether you are connecting indoors and even weather conditions

3 things that works much, much better on UMTS900 :D :D :D
 
Where's the CellC logo in this "article" or is this just a disguised Vodacon ad hmmmm?
 
The factors described in this article all affect throughput as a factor of distance from the tower but a much more important one in the local SA context is that of loading.

And here the frequency used (900 or 2100) is irrelevant.

Two factors will influence your throughput based on the number of users attached to the tower.

Firstly is the concept of cell breathing, common to all 3G networks, where the size of the cell decreases rapidly as a factor of the number of users connected to it. This happens very quickly, after just a few users, and is characterised by users complaining they get good throughput during quieter times but when the network gets busy (typically at night) their performance fall away or the 3G signal completely disappears. The cell shrunk past them and they are now outside the cell.

The only way to address this is by adding more cells to ensure everyone is close to a tower.

It might appear at first that 900MHz might help here but you can see the more loaded a bigger cell becomes, the quicker it shrinks as the circumference of a larger cell will decrease more rapidly than a smaller cell.

900MHz is therefore perfect for lightly loaded rural areas but not so much urban or peri-urban environments with larger number of power users.

Fewer, larger cells have another side-effect with 'cell-overlap' much more significant than with lots of smaller cells. This overlap causes interference and other problems, again resulting in poor performance. And, again, the only answer is more but smaller cells. Operators will often 'tilt' the antennas down to make a cell smaller. This will result in gaps and users with no coverage so you then fill in the gaps with more towers.

Thus the tendency in urban and peri-urban is for more, smaller cells rather than fewer, larger ones. This is not just advantageous but critical when it comes to power users.

It's these very same power users that bring up the second problem caused by cell density, or rather, the lack thereof viz. throughput.

A single 3G tower can only handle a specific throughput and this must be shared by all users attached to it. The maximum throughput is a function of the 'modulation' and not frequency.

In a lightly loaded environment such as rural, you can use a bigger cell to service a few users but as the number of users increase throughput will drop away quickly. This will be seen by complaints of speeds that used to be good but now are much less.

These two factors (cell breathing and number of users) conspire to destroy the performance of a 3G network and the only way around this is to build more towers.
 
@Jannie: If you are downloading a file from the net via 3G and your cell shrinks to the extent that your signal moves to a different tower, will your download session be terminated? i.e. is there a seamless transition during the tower handover?
 
MickeyD said:
@Jannie: If you are downloading a file from the net via 3G and your cell shrinks to the extent that your signal moves to a different tower, will your download session be terminated? i.e. is there a seamless transition during the tower handover?
Click to expand...

Being a mobile technology, 3G does provide handover between cells without dropping the connection but a number of factors could interfere with the process. For example, will the new cell have capacity to take you on?

I'll ask the radio guys what happens if it's caused by cell shrinkage. I suspect it's not such an elegant process as in normal handover.
 
jannievanzyl said:
Being a mobile technology, 3G does provide handover between cells without dropping the connection but a number of factors could interfere with the process. For example, will the new cell have capacity to take you on?

I'll ask the radio guys what happens if it's caused by cell shrinkage. I suspect it's not such an elegant process as in normal handover.
Click to expand...

This is actually something i've been wondering about. :)

I have noticed a "drop" in connection when my phone changes from edge to 3G but not vice versa. Not that it's really an issue to me. :p
 
Jannie is dead right.
I experience exactly what he has described - in Jhb on Cell C's network.
Cell C constantly touts their 900MHZ towers, but the reality is they have too few towers and users sit with the cell breathing problems and consequent slow/poor throughput.
Cell C's HSPA+ 900MHZ network sucks!
 
So here's my MTN reality check...
Driving down the N1 from Durbanville to Cape Town... 3G coverage vanishes at least FOUR times along the route. The worst is at Paarden Eiland for KM or two. I've been forced to set my handset on GSM only.
So what about MTN Data speeds???
- Longmarket St - Cape Town. Both EDGE and 3G keep timing out i.e.: latency is so damn high that my apps keep timing out.
- Century City - Cape Town - 3G is as (massively) erratic as B. Cele. :D Sane one minute... and well tilting at windmills the next. I step from my couch to TV and have a signal swap - 3G to EDGE and back. Forget getting coverage inside any stores in the Mall. 3G drops out completely and EDGE is blooming slow. Have better chances of connecting using EDGE tho. You sit for minutes watching the data card... or phone swap between bands... HSDPA... 3G... EDGE and back.
- Bellville - 3G non-existant... and again EDGE darn slow.

So what about Vodacom??
I have a Voda Data Bundle... Again!!! Damn erratic. Almost the same experiences as MTN.

So before you say equipment... no it is NOT.
Members of my Team, who provide after hours support and who live in other parts of Cape Town report the same with both MTN and Voda data cards.
In terms of data card experiences we're talking 3 MTN, 2 Voda cards.
In terms of voice it's 3 MTN and 3 Voda with handsets 2 Android, 1 iPhone, 1 WM 6.1, 1 Nokia and 1 Samsung Omnia.
So... no it's not that.

We're obviously living in the twilight zone... The respective CEO's are clearly blocking out the sun!!!! :sick:

... sigh... hate ranting but 'am real frustrated forking out ZARs for super duper smart phones that are completely hamstrung by the network. PS: battery life on Auto -= 1 day... on GSM 2-days... and that's because of the constant band switching.
 
ROFL... so the slowest realistic speed (edge of the tower) is the same as Telkom ADSL 4Mbps? I think not. Someone say FAIL!
 
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