Vodacom’s HSDPA here in April
Both Vodacom and MTN have been trialing HSDPA for the past few months in a race to determine who would come out tops. As was the case with 3G, Vodacom’s customers will again be first to experience the benefits of this high speed mobile broadband service.
"Little over a year ago Vodacom introduced 3G to South Africa. Now we are again first in bringing our customers the fastest mobile Internet access available in South Africa – 3G with HSDPA," says Pieter Uys, Vodacom’s Chief Operating Officer.
"3G HSDPA delivers performance comparable to today’s ADSL and wireless LAN services, but with the added benefit of mobility. It is 3G on steroids!," says Uys.
HSDPA promises to deliver speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps, faster than both Telkom’s DSL 1024 and iBurst’s 1 Mbps offerings. The new offering will be launched with an uplink speed of 128 kbps, double the current 3G standard.
This higher speed has many advantages for both private and corporate users, including shortened download times and lower latency.
To ensure that Vodacom users experience a high level of service from this new offering Vodacom has upgraded their international connectivity.
Vodacom will be relying on Siemens technology for their HSDPA service. The new PCMCIA data cards will be able to connect using HSDPA, 3G, EDGE or GPRS, a significant advantage over the previous 3G/GPRS cards.
While the new upgraded network can handle speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps, the current HSDPA data cards have an upper limit of 1.8 Mbps.
“Through our strategic alliance with Vodafone we are able to offer customers access to our 3G HSDPA network with the exclusive use of a Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G Broadband card. With this card you can browse the internet and download e-mails at superior data speeds, send and receive SMS messages, as well as chat online using existing instant messaging services such as MSN, or access your company network,“ Uys said.
“The Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G broadband card with HSPDA can also be used on any of the Vodafone 3G broadband networks worldwide where roaming agreements are in place,“ quips Uys.
The new HSDPA enabled data cards will be available in Vodacom stores from April 2006, but Uys warned that their may be delays in providing stock nationwide.
The pricing for HSDPA will initially be the same as the current 3G data rates, but Uys pointed out that they will be reviewing the pricing and that users can expect to pay lower rates for data in future.
MTN, which was six months behind Vodacom with the launch of their 3G service, was unavailable for comment.
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