Vodacom 7.2 Mbps HSDPA

[Fantastic1]

will Vodacom be launching an uncapped solution similar to IS ?

 

[Gatecrasher]

I'm averaging below R10/Gb on ADSL. It isn't worth paying upwards of 20 times more for the extra speed.

 

[Lydon]

We don't need faster, we need to be able to USE IT MORE!

Boo freaking hoo, speak for yourself.

 

[Chevron]

This boils down to two questions really:-
1. Is VC wimax performance significantly lower than VC hsdpa (in reality), or are they on par?
2. Assuming they are on par, is Vodacom intending to significantly bring down the price of hsdpa? (At the current rate and the new speeds, the costs are plain crazy i.e. R578 per hour!)

brilliantt I don't think you're really that brilliant. The reason wimax is called an adsl replacement is because it doesn't have the high latencies associated with HSDPA. It's latencies are a lot lower and closer to adsl latencies.

Hence the word "replacement".

Sigh.

 

[brilliantt]

brilliantt I don't think you're really that brilliant. The reason wimax is called an adsl replacement is because it doesn't have the high latencies associated with HSDPA. It's latencies are a lot lower and closer to adsl latencies.

Hence the word "replacement".

Sigh.

Thanks for your kind words. It is interesting though, that you quote the 2 questions that I asked, but blindly fail to address them. You can pat yourself on the back for knowing something about high latencies, but you are slow of understanding: The issue here, is POSITIONING and PRICE

Sigh.

 

[rpm]

rpm, have you had any feedback or have you been able to do a similar test on MTN's 7.2 service?

No success yet. A vodacom versus MTN article to follow on HSDPA - will explain everything there.

 

[Ludjer]

this is all nice but the bandwidth is quite pricey, whats the use of a 8mb line and 3 gig of cap :\

 

[Prometheus]

I do not see everyone using a download manager and several sites are either not compatible or give erroneous results when starting a download in the middle. Even with multiple downloads I can not get past 1Mb/s during peak times so I am rather weary of taking these results as the norm. Rather it would appear that only a few sites in the country will get more than 1.8 speeds.

Correct, and again I don't want to look like I'm defending a company I have to pay +-R1000 to every month on my cell bills, but we cannot compare the ISP's to Vodacom, It's costs loads to run each of the towers (a scary amount), an expense the ISPs simply do not have to incur. AND mobile data is meant to be considered a 'luxury'.

Mobile data is a luxury in the rest of the world and even there it is considerably cheaper, here it is considered basic connectivity. They make much more because of that than they would otherwise and has the customer base to offset the extra costs so can give it at an adsl comparable price. Someone here said that we compare our adsl with international standards and should use the same standard with our mobile. I agree and what they are offering falls far short of the international norm and adsl.

brilliantt I don't think you're really that brilliant. The reason wimax is called an adsl replacement is because it doesn't have the high latencies associated with HSDPA. It's latencies are a lot lower and closer to adsl latencies.

Hence the word "replacement".

Sigh.

It's not a replacement for adsl if it's not comparable or cheaper than adsl. Some people, the gamers specifically, might settle for better latency but for the majority latency is third on the list of importancies.

It's not a replacement if it's not cheaper and there's still no clarity on this issue. You can't speak for Vodacom but as a member of the public I do not see latency as a measure to compare services.