My question remain...
How do some users get 75Mbps d/l and many others like myself only 25Mbps d/l.
It seems if Telkom have different speeds in differnt areas.
Do any other users with perfect signal experience the same?
Through sharing our experiences this exact topic is now in the limelight.
Firstly, one needs to know what the capability of the cell tower is to which you're connecting. As per TJB's posts, his rooftop cell tower is limited to 30Mbps. My own tower is limited to 100Mbps (remember we're taking per connection, not backhaul). There is no way of knowing this information except by gathering user reports.
Many cell towers are being
upgraded to 100Mbps (LTE Cat 3) specifically by Telkom -
because they've identified LTE as a viable and profitable infrastructure unlike their ADSL exchanges. In the medium term the next upgrade steps will be to 150Mbps (LTE Cat 4) then 300Mbps (LTE Cat 5). I'm not certain what MTN and Vodacom's plans are. Long term the case for micro and picocells will become bigger business e.g. Poynting's Mantis product.
I'm personally still trying to understand the mix of RSSI, RSRP and RSRQ as speed/connection determinants. Obviously so many other factors play a role such as RF landscape (interference) and physical landscape (reflection).
I've personally attained > 70Mbps with LOS to my own cell tower at ~1.36km. Others aren't getting half that speed at 800m, while others are getting > 85Mbps at 2.3km.
By using an outdoor antenna you improve your connection and stability. If you're getting pretty good signal with your device's internal antennas, then you may be happy with that and not want to spend cash on an outdoor antenna solution. However, the proof is in this very thread (except TJB
) that outdoor antennas can greatly improve your speeds and overall experience.
I'm personally on LTE for 10 months and counting with no ADSL fallback. For the purposes of this thread, I would have loved to run parallel setups - one with internal antennas and one with outdoor antennas - and report back with my experiences of both; sadly I only have hindsight now so it's water under the bridge.
Someone recently commented that we seem caught up in a trivial speed competition. However, speed does matter depending on what you expect from the Internet. A 50Mbps connection can serve multiple 1080p YouTube streams while someone else uses the internet to surf; for a 25Mbps connection you might only be able to do one 1080p stream at a time. Others want fast downloads but this will only "really" matter when we have access to much bigger mobile data packages.
My own household caters for 3 wireless access points, 1 wireless bridge, 4 smart phones, 2 tablets, 1 laptop, 2 desktops, 2 Apple TV's, a PS3 and VoIP. VoIP happens via Switch Telecom as well as FaceTime Audio. So the demands on own home network are quite substantial. Only LTE can serve my current needs and I personally want the fastest connection possible.
Edit: for the record I believe
BitCo could also serve my needs.
