Vodacom says it has become the first operator in SA to have broken the 500Mbps barrier on its live LTE-Advanced (4G+) network.
The test was successfully completed on a commercial, LTE-Advanced (4G+) base station at the Vodacom regional office in Nelspruit (Mpumalanga) on 6 June, using all three of Vodacom's frequency bands. A total bandwidth of 35MHz was used, by 'carrier aggregating' three different spectrum bands of 10MHz of 900MHz, 10MHz of 1 800MHz and 15MHz of 2 100MHz Vodacom spectrum.
In addition, 4x4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) and 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (256 QAM) technology features were activated on the site. The 4x4 MIMO feature uses four antenna ports to transmit and receive data, which in turn requires specialised antennas on base stations as well as accompanying smartphone antennas. The internal smartphone modem has to be capable of supporting four different data streams.
The 4x4 MIMO feature 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 of 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 was carried out using the latest commercial Samsung Galaxy S8+ device which supports triple band carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO and 256 QAM - all at the same time.
"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," says Andries Delport, Vodacom chief technology officer.
"In this instance, 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 points out it is difficult to replicate the same results over other wider parts of the network, as spectrum re-farming is not possible without affecting service quality to existing users, particularly the large number of 2G and 3G customers who are all competing for the same limited spectrum resources.
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