MWEB ready to take on Telkom in WiMax space
MWEB recently launched their WiMax trials in Cape Town and Gauteng, and so far they have supplied broadband connectivity to around 360 people in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
While the Cape Town trials are progressing without incident, MWEB is faced with various interference and frequency issues in Johannesburg.
“To date more than 200 people in Cape Town are trialing MWEB's WiMax service. With regards to triallists in Johannesburg, after some initial frequency issues, we resumed installations only to find more problems (interference related) so we have concentrated on the Soweto and Boksburg installations,” MWEB said.
Despite the problems faced in Johannesburg, 160 people are already trialing MWEB's WiMax service of which the majority is in Soweto and Boksburg. MWEB is also in the process of installing WiMax at a further 350 homes and businesses, but due to the interference problems their installations have been delayed.
“The interference is due to illegal usage of our allocated trial spectrum and we are in discussions with ICASA to clear this as soon as possible,” MWEB said.
Satisfactory feedback from users
MWEB said that the feedback from their Cape Town user base has been satisfactory.
“We have learnt quite a bit about the wireless backhaul options available to us and how it affects the end user experience. There's lots of tweaking we can still do, but the experience for most of our users is extremely encouraging,” MWEB said.
“In Soweto, the reception from our Soweto traillists has been one of absolute excitement with the majority of the users wanting to create their own small businesses with the broadband access.”
MWEB is currently providing access speeds of 384 Kbps, 512 Kbps and 1024Kbps. MWEB said that in tests done in conjunction with selected subscribers, using both the fixed CPE as well as the self-install devices, they have shown download speeds very close to the maximum line speed.
The company said that they are still in the process of testing higher access speeds and that they will make such information available in the future.
Ready to take on Telkom
MWEB said that they are confident that they will be able to compete effectively against Telkom’s WiMax services which were launched recently.
Telkom has launched a 512 Kbps WiMax offering which has a basic access charge of R 240-00 after which the subscriber must purchase a standard ‘ADSL ISP’ account for monthly bandwidth usage.
MWEB said that the trial has allowed them to gather the necessary know-how and experience to effectively roll out a national WiMax network, and that they are ready to compete against Telkom should they receive a commercial license.
“MWEB successfully competes with Telkom on other internet access products, and WiMax will be no different. MWEB has the advantage of not having to cater for existing legacy services and would not have to worry about cannibalization of these services as Telkom does,” MWEB concluded.
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