{"id":45902,"date":"2012-10-15T11:12:52","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T09:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=45902"},"modified":"2012-10-15T11:35:25","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T09:35:25","slug":"vodacom-lte-tested-verdict-its-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/45902-vodacom-lte-tested-verdict-its-fast","title":{"rendered":"Vodacom LTE tested – verdict: it’s fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vodacom<\/a>\u2019s LTE<\/a> service was launched recently, and real world tests in Johannesburg showed an impressive performance. However, LTE coverage is still very patchy.<\/p>\n

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub<\/a> launched their commercial LTE service at the 2012 MyBroadband Conference on 10 October.<\/p>\n

\u201cLTE represents a major jump in mobile connectivity capabilities. The service has the potential to operate at more than double the speed of any existing mobile connection currently commercially available in South Africa,\u201d said Joosub.<\/p>\n

At the launch event Vodacom showed real world speeds of well above 60Mbps with upload speeds of over 10Mbps. Local latency was just above 20ms.<\/p>\n

One can assume that these tests were performed without other LTE users on the network, which is one of the significant factors influencing mobile broadband speeds.<\/p>\n

The following image shows the performance of the live LTE performed at the launch of Vodacom\u2019s LTE service.<\/p>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a>

Vodacom LTE launch live speed test<\/p><\/div>\n

Vodacom LTE coverage<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the Vodacom LTE launch, Joosub said that 70 LTE sites were live in Johannesburg and Midrand.<\/p>\n

In a 2 hour LTE war-driving session in Vodacom\u2019s coverage area the “4G” symbol, which indicates real-world LTE coverage, appeared fairly infrequently.<\/p>\n

Initial testing showed that Vodacom\u2019s LTE coverage is currently very patchy, even in areas where one would expect to receive a good LTE signal.<\/p>\n

However, this is expected to change over the next few weeks. Joosub said that while they currently only have 70 live sites, they are planning to increase their coverage to 500 sites by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a>

Vodacom LTE coverage map in Johannesburg<\/p><\/div>\n

Real world speeds<\/strong><\/p>\n

Real world mobile broadband speeds are influenced by many factors, including signal strength, the number of people using a site and the transmission capacity servicing a site.<\/p>\n

Live tests in various locations around Johannesburg – using MyBroadband\u2019s speed test server – showed download speeds ranging between 10Mbps and 35Mbps. Upload speeds typically ranged between 5Mbps and 16Mbps.<\/p>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a>

Vodacom LTE speed test – South African server (MTN network)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a>

Vodacom LTE speed test – international server<\/p><\/div>\n

While the download and upload speeds were encouraging, the most impressive part of Vodacom\u2019s LTE service was the low latency which was achieved.<\/p>\n

Local latency to MyBroadband, which is hosted on MTN\u2019s network, was around 20ms while international latency to the UK and US ranged between 200ms and 300ms. Such low latencies were previously only associated with fixed broadband services like ADSL and fibre.<\/p>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a>

Vodacom LTE South African latency<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Vodacom<\/a>

Vodacom LTE international latency<\/p><\/div>\n

Vodacom\u2019s new LTE service did not fail to impress. The download and upload speeds were good, and the latency was good enough to support most online services, including online gaming.<\/p>\n

However, consumers will be well advised to make sure they get a fair LTE signal before investing in a new LTE dongle to get these higher speeds.<\/p>\n

Article courtesy of MyBroadband – Vodacom LTE tested, and it\u2019s fast<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vodacom launches LTE in SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

What LTE means for you<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

8ta plans free LTE trial with 50GB of data<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MyBroadband took Vodacom\u2019s LTE service for a spin, and the results were impressive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":45698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,5890,6947,817],"class_list":["post-45902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-active","tag-lte","tag-shameel-joosub","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45903,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45902\/revisions\/45903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}