VodaCom coverage in SA "outback"

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SUPERMAN89

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Being on a small trip into the wetlands of KZN.
A place where the towers look funny and you get 3.5G.....yes! Not only did i get HSDPA 3.6 but edge ! I living in Durban was like WTF,these people in the "outback" have better back-haul than people in urban areas.I know the demand of rural vs urban cannot be matched up and the last time this topic was out the answer of (Why spend so much on edge roll-out when you got 3G HSDPA to worry about).

Thou my point is
- The number of GSM users to 3G users
- Users who switch to GSM only
- Users who go out of 3G coverage


Edge is a small bump on the speedtest meter thou its an upgrade to urban area's with a switch of GPRS to HSDPA

- First Neotel's coverage faces area where no one lives
- Now VodaCom with edge and HSDPA 3.6 in the middle of NO-WHERE

Am I missing something here with why yet again Durban has such a "wide edge coverage" to rural KZN.Its time VodaCom just puts up some edge coverage at lest in urban areas!
 
Superman89 : there is a technical reason why parts of Durban don't have edge... it is due to the supplier equipment that was used in this part of the country... its not a simple software upgrade to enable edge iirc.
 
CellC does not have 3G coverage AFAIK

- yet in the Greenbushes area I was able to connect to CellC via 3G and the speeds, during the day, better than telkom analogue dialup. After hours, for some reason, the transfer rate was bad.

Which begs the question - what kind of infrastructure does the cellular masts have in order to deliver good 3G transfer rates, and what does it cost? (telkom cost etc).
 
@ ToxicBunny ,thou i has been a long time since edge was around to have supplier equipment problem..lol than again im not working for Voda so I can fight that reason

@ The_Librarian , i should have tried that lol..thou i did get Cell C coverage sometimes in remote places...makes you wonder what goes on there
 
@ Super - another thing to keep in mind is that the signal was alternating between vodacom and cellc all the time, and sometimes it would disconnect.

So I manually set the phone to use the cellc network, and that solved the issue of the phone alternating between voda and cellc.
 
The_Librarian said:
@ Super - another thing to keep in mind is that the signal was alternating between vodacom and cellc all the time, and sometimes it would disconnect.

So I manually set the phone to use the cellc network, and that solved the issue of the phone alternating between voda and cellc.
Click to expand...

I get what you mean now:D
 
Superman : why upgrade to EDGE when your network is now fully HSDPA enabled... it almost doesn't make any business sense to do a retroactive upgrade to a lesser technology since most cellphones now are at LEAST 3g...

Plus from what I remember, the cost to do the Edge upgrade was quite considerable, but only v3g could comment on that.
 
My point to this point was,how come the outback of South Africa has full house of edge and hsdpa thou my reason to VodaCom rolling out edge is

3G cut off/out of range: while login into myadsl on my mobile i was dropped of the hsdpa network and had to use gprs.Whats the use really if i go out of coverage or my connection gets cut of and falls back to gprs? How does it feel downloading emails on the move than u get cut of 3g and have to download them at slow speeds? Even a hspda 3.6 device would fall short there

2nd point, VodaCom is a telcom network,theres people out there who may not have 3G phones and have to go slow with gprs. Take durban for example Cell C and Mtn have rolled out a large edge footprint so no matter what phone either edge or hspda they would get sum what of fast speed.

Thou people in farms,even areas wheres there no houses just cows have the choice,i living in dsl,adsl,hsdpa,iburst,sentech,neotel land cant get edge.......thou i can always move to mtn...problem over 4me but for the 10000+ people in durban and other towns its not
 
Just a question, if you have HSDPA coverage, why do you want EDGE?. I think that the percentage of people with 3G-capable phones, compared to those that don't have 3G phones, does not justify a large rollout of EDGE, but you would have to confirm that with v3g or someone else working for Vodacom.

As ToxicBunny said, why bother maintaining EDGE when you already have HSDPA on your network. I would rather Vodacom spent money on upgrading to HSDPA 7.2 and improving connectivity with it, than expanding their EDGE coverage.

B
 
Firstly, remember Vodacom is a business and like any other business they'll go for the low hanging fruits first. Business-101.

So cities and towns will always get more preference than the country and corporates before consumers (in the case of VB).

Secondly, Vodacom's stated policy is to grown the 3G network and to have all towers on 3.6. So new towers are going up daily and they're all on 3.6. But it does not mean the back-haul to service them is always up to scratch, especially if we would like to turn 7.2 on. We've discussed that point at length here.

So, the fact that you get HSDPA in the 'outback' shows that Vodacom is, in fact, executing this strategy and that there were no problems in getting the rural towers up, i.e. no one tried to stop it and there was enough back-haul available.

Why then the coverage problems in areas where there surely is a bigger demand?

Obviously the inverse of the above, either new towers are being blocked or there is not enough back-haul to service any such new towers.

On the EDGE issue, a large number (approaching 50%) of the network is on EDGE but the other portion requires upgrades to turn it on. So the question; do you build more 3G towers or do you upgrade to EDGE?

We do actually do both depending on the specific circumstances.
 
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Vodacom3g, when you talk about people blocking towers, how does that work?

Where do they find out about the towers going up in their area? Must vodacom publish it somewhere?

And who has the right to block a tower? Must they live within a certain distance?

I am just trying to understand how big a problem this is for the networks?
 
Pilgrim said:
Vodacom3g, when you talk about people blocking towers, how does that work?

Where do they find out about the towers going up in their area? Must vodacom publish it somewhere?

And who has the right to block a tower? Must they live within a certain distance?

I am just trying to understand how big a problem this is for the networks?
Click to expand...

Once you've found a piece of land you must do an environmental study for the proposed site.

Part of this requires to get permission from the people in the area. I assume this is done by mail drops in the neighbourhood but are not 100% sure.

Maybe Brad or one of the radio boys can comment here how it works exactly.

Site selection is a huge problem for the networks. Everyone wants coverage but they don't want the towers near them. So they'll block towers in their immediate area but will complain bitterly if coverage is bad.
 
vodacom3g said:
Stuff v3g said
Click to expand...

I will reiterate that I would rather see Vodacom spending more money on 3G, and both where viable, as you said you do sometimes. But I think the focus should be on 3G.

Heh, you can put a tower in my garden any day :D I already have the palm tree, your radio guys just need to bring the antennas, cable, and power! :D

B
 
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I think the biggest problem in the cities are the mommies who have nothing better to do than lodge objections to new towers because the radio waves will intervere with their cycle/give them cancer/lower their children's iq's blah blah...
 
vodacom3g said:
Firstly, remember Vodacom is a business and like any other business they'll go for the low hanging fruits first. Business-101.

So cities and towns will always get more preference than the country and corporates before consumers (in the case of VB).

Secondly, Vodacom's stated policy is to grown the 3G network and to have all towers on 3.6. So new towers are going up daily and they're all on 3.6. But it does not mean the back-haul to service them is always up to scratch, especially if we would like to turn 7.2 on. We've discussed that point at length here.

So, the fact that you get HSDPA in the 'outback' shows that Vodacom is, in fact, executing this strategy and that there were no problems in getting the rural towers up, i.e. no one tried to stop it and there was enough back-haul available.

Why then the coverage problems in areas where there surely is a bigger demand?

Obviously the inverse of the above, either new towers are being blocked or there is not enough back-haul to service any such new towers.

On the EDGE issue, a large number (approaching 50%) of the network is on EDGE but the other portion requires upgrades to turn it on. So the question; do you build more 3G towers or do you upgrade to EDGE?

We do actually do both depending on the specific circumstances.
Click to expand...

Thanks v3g, sad but true i guess id rather have better 3G HSDPA (than maybe i wouldnt get cut off or go out of coverage and have to opt using gprs) Business wise makes sence,if nobody going block the tower and there's enough back-haul available why no go full-house in the outback. Oh well...
 
vodacom3g said:
Once you've found a piece of land you must do an environmental study for the proposed site.

Part of this requires to get permission from the people in the area. I assume this is done by mail drops in the neighbourhood but are not 100% sure.

Maybe Brad or one of the radio boys can comment here how it works exactly.

Site selection is a huge problem for the networks. Everyone wants coverage but they don't want the towers near them. So they'll block towers in their immediate area but will complain bitterly if coverage is bad.
Click to expand...

I have never seen any news about towers going up from any of the network operators.

I was just wondering how much of a "hush hush" operation it is to put up a tower. :D
 
Vodacom, and any other network operator, is required to go through an EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) process, which by law requires a public participation process. The advertising requirements however are quite limited, i.e. posters must be put up in the general vicinity of the proposed site. I am not sure that any sort of publication of applications in newspapers is required. So, if you see any laminated A4 pages stuck to a tree of fence anywhere near what might be a good place to put up a base station, perhaps you should stop and read it.
I live in a rural conservancy, and we perpetually keep our eyes open for things like this as developers are forever wanting to put up 100 houses on 10 hectares and that kind of thing. Then we register as an I&AP (Interested and Affected Party) within the timeframes stipulated (normally 30 days from first posting of the notice) This means that, by law, we have to be kept informed of any and all movements towards the approval / denial of the site, and also be allowed to register our opinions, be they for or against the development.
The raising of cellphone masts is a highly contentious issue, and is something that a lot of people in town, and also in the country, look out for. Of course, as people, we want the best of both worlds. We want stellar network connectivity, but at the same time we do not want a cellphone mast in our back yard. What selfish people we are.
 
If they can provide me with a platform so that I can lie up there and shoot the hadedas before they cr@p on my roof, they can stick one in my back yard...
 
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