Gauteng LTE challenge – get ready to be impressed

South African mobile operators have a massive challenge when it comes to rolling out LTE – a lack of spectrum.

The challenges in handing out spectrum are caused by slow policy progress at the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services, and the delay in digital TV migration.

These delays mean that valuable spectrum is sitting unused, which costs South Africa billions of rand each year.

Spectrum constraints is the single biggest hurdle to deploying LTE and LTE-Advanced in SA.

Vodacom, MTN, and Cell C are forced to re-farm spectrum to roll out LTE. This is far from ideal, and poses challenges.

LTE coverage in Gauteng

MyBroadband recently tested mobile broadband speeds in Johannesburg, Midrand, and Tshwane, and recorded the bearer across all networks.

The bearer is indicated on the phone by G (GPRS), E (Edge), 3G (UMTS), H (HSPA), H+ (HSPA+), and 4G (LTE).

MyBroadband performed 33 stationary speed tests, and 10 drive tests on the N1 at 120km/h. The results were impressive.

The majority of the tests were performed on an LTE network, which shows that Gauteng has excellent LTE coverage.

Vodacom had the best LTE coverage, with only one test performed on HSPA+. It was followed by MTN, Telkom, and Cell C.

The table below shows the results of MyBroadband’s tests, performed using four Huawei Mate S smartphones.

A big thanks to Huawei for providing MyBroadband with four Mate S smartphones for the tests.

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