Supersonic reveals its Air Fibre rollout plans and coverage areas

[Polymathic]

Would you pay a few thousand rand upfront for the installation?

LTE

 

[Sabatius_the_Great]

Smart move to rollout in Soweto
Folks there don't pay for electricity, should have extra disposable income for fibre.

How do you know? Do you live with every sowetan?

 

[Gazg]

Not nearly as stupid as calling a wireless product "fibre". It is literally the opposite of fibre.

As long as it gets better speeds than Rain for the same money, they can call it whatever they choose!

 

[charlieharper]

I really need to move away from the KZN South Coast.

How far south are you?

I've got Openserve fibre here....

 

[SlowInternet]

Collett said they have seen great interest for the product in suburbs where there was no fibre coverage. Surprisingly, most of these were located in major cities and not the small towns Supersonic had anticipated.

It is logic that there will be a greater number located in major cities that show interest because there are much more people staying in the cities. Smaller towns will always be the last to get any affordable and reliable internet.

There is a greater possibility that the population of South Africa will all be vaccinated and Covid lockdown will be ended before my town gets affordable and reliable internet.

 

[quovadis]

Is this just like a glorified wisp?

 

[Nineteeneightysix]

How far south are you?

I've got Openserve fibre here....

Marina Beach.

 

[Crumbl0x]

Marina Beach.

Oh darn! If I remember, Vodacom as an FNO rolled out in that area, my condolences

 

[charlieharper]

Oh darn! If I remember, Vodacom as an FNO rolled out in that area, my condolences

Lol was was just about to say.

Yes, not the best, BUT it's fibre.

 

[blunt]

Cape town including the Winelands area? That's gonna take a while to roll out.

 

[Nineteeneightysix]

Lol was was just about to say.

Yes, not the best, BUT it's fibre.

As far as I know only Southbroom. Will look into it though

 

[The_MAC]

LTE

What's your point?

This is an actual piece of RF equipment that is installed at your premises, not a plug-and-play consumer CPE

 

[IssiAmd]

How do you know? Do you live with every sowetan?

Errm no...
These days we have this thing called the news

 

[Mister 46]

So much for covering "rural" areas that don't have access to real fiber. Thought that was the friggin point of this.
/* off to sent Elon some money

 

[Sapphiron]

Is this just like a glorified wisp?

Yes

The reason this one can do good coverage, is because they have access to MTN towers.

Their tech is nothing special compared to the modern kit that WISPs are using.

This will likely be better than LTE and ADSL, but significantly worse than fibre.

The main thing to watch out for is oversubscription. They have about 700MB (best case) of bandwidth per 90 degree antenna, if they use 5:1 contention on last mile, then they can only sell 3.5GBit before overheads (very aggressive for wireless). That's not a whole lot when they are talking about 2000 customers per antenna.

Sounds like the accountants are designing the products, not the tech people and marketing is running with it. Later the tech people will get the blame for it not working.

 

[quovadis]

Yes

In that case and IMHO it's an abuse of unlicensed spectrum.

 

[Joseph matane]

So Supersonic is planning to cover 600,000 homes by May next year, and single tower can connect 2000 subscribers "15KM radius coverage" this means Supersonic plan to roll out 300 & something sites within 12 months

 

[Polymathic]

What happens if ICASA decides to auction that spectrum?

 

[Vorastra]

What happens if ICASA decides to auction that spectrum?

 

[The_Ogre]

Nope Kraaibak aka kraaifontein

One would think Octotel would cover your area since they cover Buh-Rein which is right next to you