Vodacom breaks 500Mbps on 4G+ network
Vodacom has broken the 500Mbps mobile data speed barrier on its live LTE-Advanced (4G+) network.
Vodacom said it is the first operator in South Africa to do so, with the test conducted on a commercial base station at the Vodacom regional office in Nelspruit on 6 June.
The test used all three of Vodacom’s frequency bands.
“A total bandwidth of 45MHz was used, by carrier aggregating three different spectrum bands.”
“In addition, 4×4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) and 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (256 QAM) technology features were also activated on the site,” said Vodacom.
The 4×4 MIMO feature uses four antenna ports to transmit and receive data. It also means the data connection between the base station and the mobile device consists of up to four separate data streams.
“Since each data stream can contain independent data, there is the possibility for a quadrupling in the data rate over a single data stream.”
“256 QAM is a higher order modulation scheme, which also increases the amount of data carried in an LTE signal.”
The test device was a Samsung Galaxy S8+ using 4×4 MIMO 256 QAM test software. This is set to be commercially available in Q3 2017.
Speeds reached on the device peaked at 549.99Mbps.
“The speed test is a great example of the LTE-Advanced speeds which are possible if more spectrum is made available to mobile operators in South Africa,” said Andries Delport, Vodacom’s Chief Technology Officer.
“It was possible to use the base station at the Nelspruit office for the test, as it presented an opportunity to re-farm spectrum for LTE without needing to do the same over extensive neighbouring areas.”
He said it was difficult to replicate the same results over other wider parts of the network.
The screenshot below shows a Vodacom test done with the MyBroadband Speed Test App.
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