Cellular4.01.2016

iBurst uncapped LTE tested – it’s fast

By Jan Vermeulen

FNB recently invited some its FNB Connect ADSL subscribers to participate in an uncapped LTE trial.

The service is powered by iBurst’s new LTE network, which the company has rolled out to areas in Johannesburg for testing.

iBurst recently came under new ownership when its parent, Wireless Business Solutions, was acquired by Multisource.

After the acquisition, the company received a new CEO, Duncan Simpson-Craib, who said iBurst was rolling out an LTE network using its spectrum in the 1,800Mhz band.

This is the same band that Vodacom and MTN use for their LTE networks.

Sign-up and installation

Huawei B315 LTE router box

Huawei B315 LTE router installed

When you sign up for the uncapped LTE trial through FNB Connect, technicians come to your premises and confirm that you fall within the coverage area of the pilot network.

They then install a Huawei B315 LTE router, and configure it.

At the end of the trial, which is set to run until 29 February 2016, you will be expected to return the equipment.

Performance tests

iBurst uncapped LTE test - YouTube 1080p

YouTube 1080p video streaming test

We ran a few Ookla speed tests on the service, queued up some downloads, and streamed videos from ShowMax and YouTube.

Speeds ranged between 22Mbps and 32Mbps, and streaming from YouTube, ShowMax, and DStv was smooth.

It was possible to stream 1080p video from YouTube with the buffer download comfortably outpacing the progress bar. Videos from ShowMax and DStv Catch Up are streamed and downloaded at a maximum quality of 720p.

Our tester was also able to push the service well past the 50GB fair usage limit in the weeks since the trial began, and reported that even after consuming 98GB of data no throttling was evident.

Download speeds remained between 22Mbps and 28Mbps over the extended test, while upload speeds swung between 6Mbps and 19Mbps.