Cell C officially launches 21 Mbps HSPA+ service

Cell C today officially launched its new 21 Mbps HSPA+ mobile broadband service in Port Elizabeth – the first city to gain commercial access to Cell C’s newly deployed HSPA+ network.

Cell C is offering clients two broadband services:

1. For R1,499 you will get a modem capable of speeds of up to 7.2Mbps and 2GB of data every month for a period of 12 months.
2. For R2,999 you will get a modem capable of speeds of up to 21.6Mbps and 5GB of data every month for a period of 12 months.

Out of bundle pricing is 39c per MB, well below the standard prepaid rate of R2 per MB from Vodacom and MTN. 

This pricing is setting a new standard in the local cellular market with a far lower per-GB price than any competing service in the market.

According to Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt they are experiencing an average throughput of 5 Mbps to 6 Mbps.  This speed, says Reichelt, is significantly higher than ‘Competitor 1 at 2-3 Mbps and Competitor 2 at 1-2 Mbps.

Reichelt added that realistic uplink speeds on their service is between 1 Mbps and 2 Mbps, again higher than their competitors which he says typically achieves between 0.5 Mbps and 1.5 Mbps upload speeds.

Reichelt added that Cell C will be in a position to upgrade their PE network to 40 Mbps in the next six to eight months.

There have been suggestions that Cell C selected Port Elizabeth because the company is experiencing network issues in the bigger cities.  Reichelt said that PE was selected because it represents a good cross section of customers, it is big enough to be meaningful but not big enough to be a problem.

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