Gremlins hit Vodacom

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 30 Mar 2006

Gremlins struck Vodacom today causing some disruption to its subscriber base, just three days before the release of the network operator`s broadband high speed downlink packet application (HSDPA) service.

Some subscribers across its number range were affected from about 5:00am today for about two hours until the problem was rectified, a Vodacom spokesperson says.

"Our network management team sorted out the problem as soon as it appeared and everything is working fine. Even I was affected," she says.

Vodacom denies the disruption was due to a faulty base station as the problem was experienced country wide and not localised to any one specific area.

"A very small percentage of our approximately 18 million subscribers were affected," the spokesperson says.

Overall traffic flow was unaffected by the disruption and it occurred only during one of Vodacom`s peak call-time periods, she says.

HSDPA

Vodacom is due to unveil the commercial service of its 3G HSDPA service on 2 April.

According to a statement, the service will offer Internet access performance comparable with the fixed-line ADSL and wireless local area network services and is five times faster than the existing 3G service that it introduced just over a year ago.

"You can stay connected for as long as you like because you pay only for the data that you send and receive - not for the amount of time you spend working," says Vodacom chief operating officer Pieter Uys.

No information has been received about the actual costs of subscribing to the HSDPA service.