LTE and online gaming in South Africa on the horizon

Mephisto_Helix said:
At those speeds, the service will cost an arm and 3 legs, how is it viable for gaming then?
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The optimist in me wants to say, "It'll be reasonably priced," whereas the realist in me says, "It is going to cost the same as a 10 Mbps ADSL line, and have a 3 GB cap."

I don't forsee any of the potential service providers going uncapped/really large caps with these products. At 300 Mbps down link, your download speed would be in the region of 37.5 MBps, you would blow a 5 GB cap in a matter of seconds, ~137 seconds to give a close estimate - this is assuming you actually get 300 Mbps, but 100 Mbps or 50 Mbps is still pretty good. If you have an AV that scans whilst you download, that time is going to sky rocket.

In conclusion, as to try and give an answer to your question, "How is it viable for gaming then?," I personally feel it'll be for the gamer who can't gain access to a fixed line, but still wants reasonably fast speeds.
 
The march of progress. I used to play Warcraft 3 on early 3G tech, and it cost me quite a lot each month... Still, it was the only choice at the time - I made every MB count.

One of the supposed advantages of LTE is that it will be an affordable high-speed broadband technology. There are still numerous hurdles to this though; least of all our incompetent government department of communications.

Still, let's give the mobile operators credit where it is due. This is high tech stuff and they are doing their best to soldier forward regardless of the DoC failings. Mobile broadband is the only viable option for a lot of South Africans, so I'm all for improvements :)
 
James said:
The march of progress. I used to play Warcraft 3 on early 3G tech, and it cost me quite a lot each month... Still, it was the only choice at the time - I made every MB count.

One of the supposed advantages of LTE is that it will be an affordable high-speed broadband technology. There are still numerous hurdles to this though; least of all our incompetent government department of communications.

Still, let's give the mobile operators credit where it is due. This is high tech stuff and they are doing their best to soldier forward regardless of the DoC failings. Mobile broadband is the only viable option for a lot of South Africans, so I'm all for improvements :)
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Don't get me wrong, I agree with all the points you've made. But, I know what stands in the way and that is what gets me skeptical. Greed and ineptness keeps us down. I can easily see this costing upwards of R1500 pm with a stupid cap, as mentioned by Marley :(
 
Vodacom and MTN have a very different definition of "affordable". Is Cell C also going to launch LTE?

And when will government stop holding onto spectrum for LTE?

I just see LTE costing R200 for a 1GB data cap, at least from Vodacom and MTN.
 
I don't think LTE will launch at a more expensive rate than current mobile data prices. While it is a new technology, it is just the natural progression of mobile broadband. It is in fact better for mobile operators, as their signal can propagate further, and penetrate deeper, and serve more users per cell. If anything, it could spur further price cuts down the line once LTE becomes widespread in SA. Look at how HSPA technology has helped drive down mobile broadband pricing over the last few years.
 
I agree that the pricing won't be horrendous. 4G/LTE was introduced in Namibia some months ago at speeds of about 100Mbps, quite fast and people seem to agree that the service is good! (this is, until the cell towers become saturated with traffic...)
The big thing with mobile broadband is always going to be the cap... and if its uncapped, it's always throttled/limited in some way.
 
Ya, they won't give you those speeds and have it uncapped. Imagine the amount of bandwidth you'd be able to burn through. Hopefully it's a reasonable cap though.
 
Educated guess. 10GB cap at R1000 pm.
Im seriously looking forward to this...I have had countless issues with my fixed line.
 
James said:
I don't think LTE will launch at a more expensive rate than current mobile data prices. While it is a new technology, it is just the natural progression of mobile broadband. It is in fact better for mobile operators, as their signal can propagate further, and penetrate deeper, and serve more users per cell. If anything, it could spur further price cuts down the line once LTE becomes widespread in SA. Look at how HSPA technology has helped drive down mobile broadband pricing over the last few years.
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As far as I know the only reason for that happening was because Telkom dropped the price of its IPC charges, thus enabling MTN, Vodacom and Cell C to have an HSPA price war. You could probably make a blanket statement by saying that Telkom dropping the price of its IPC charges caused the entire spectrum of broadband service providers to undergo a price war.
 
TBlaar said:
Current mobile data rate = R2 per megabyte(OOB), so R2,000 per gig. If it's gonna be in this same range, then sorry but I'll stick to my slow 1Mbps ADSL.
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I'm pretty sure it's come down quite a lot from the R2/MB that it was. Or that might just be the out-of-bundle extortion rate.

EDIT: Wait, just spotted you said OOB, anyways, out-of-bundle rates shouldn't be considered the normal rates. I don't think it'll be that high, but still probably start higher than the current in-bundle rates.
 
TBlaar said:
I am on the Topup315 package, all data is out of bundle :)
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Sounds expensive. I bought a PS+ membership the other day, and I've been downloading the 10 odd games that gives you since then. Infamous 2 alone is 15GB, although I think that was the biggest. I shudder to think what my bill would be at R2/GB
 
Marley said:
As far as I know the only reason for that happening was because Telkom dropped the price of its IPC charges, thus enabling MTN, Vodacom and Cell C to have an HSPA price war. You could probably make a blanket statement by saying that Telkom dropping the price of its IPC charges caused the entire spectrum of broadband service providers to undergo a price war.
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That certainly plays a role. Consider also that HSPA roll-out meant better coverage, further signal propagation, and of course, higher speeds - an overall better level of service. With all that came some economy of scale; with more customers signing up, the margins could be tightened, prices reduced, attracting more customers who were suddenly finding themselves able to afford mobile broadband.

LTE couldn't feasibly be launched at prices exceeding current mobile data tariffs; I don't think many average consumers will be interested in paying more, when their current HSPA speeds are actually suitable for most internet tasks.

TBlaar said:
Current mobile data rate = R2 per megabyte(OOB), so R2,000 per gig. If it's gonna be in this same range, then sorry but I'll stick to my slow 1Mbps ADSL.
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OOB is just ludicrous. At least Cell C has made a move to reducing this - 99c per MB is a major improvement. Let's hope the bigger players react accordingly.
 
James said:
OOB is just ludicrous. At least Cell C has made a move to reducing this - 99c per MB is a major improvement. Let's hope the bigger players react accordingly.
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Yeah, 99c is much better, but still, think of it as R1,000 per Gigabyte. I do about 6 per day, or 100 GB per month. Now, let's convert using LTE as my normal broadband provider, then I am doing R100k per month. Even at 10% of the current mobile pricing, this is still expensive!

So for me, this would be a nice alternative to 3G as my Laptop's on the go internet connection, but definitely not as my day to day home internet access method.
 
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