PCFormat Forum Archive

I'm pretty sure you've heard the ads about Vodacom's new faster HSDPA 3.6 service - What I didn't know, until yesterday, was that the service is free until the end of April. All existing 3G customers can sign up for the service at www.vodacom4me.co.za and it should work for most of the current USB modems which support normal HSDPA

For those who don't know what it's about, HSDPA can in theory give you download speeds of up to 3.6mbps. The more realistic estimates are download speeds of about 2.5mbps which is better than current speeds anyway. I haven't tested this yet, but have signed up and now just need to test it at home tonight. I will provide feedback as soon as I've checked it out.


edit -
Oops - forgot to mention, obviously one would still need to pay for your data bundle etc. - but the "upgraded" service itself is free. From 1 May 2008 Vodacom will be charging R50 in addition to the Data Bundle or Contract costs for those who choose to use it.

I have been getting 3.6Mbps since March last year.

Downloading with FDM I have seen 3.3Mbps speeds.

Hman wrote:I have been getting 3.6Mbps since March last year.

Downloading with FDM I have seen 3.3Mbps speeds.

If you've been getting 3.3mpbs downloads then you're exceptionally lucky. The 3.6 service has only been introduced to the public at the end of Jan 08...

Yeah, there was a few weeks in March 2007 when I could not get even 3G, that was I presume while they upgraded towers. After that I've been getting these speeds

how wil it work for sxcisting 3G users . Anythign special I would need to do ?

are you sure you been getting 3.6mb/s on downloads or just connection speed? because mine has been connecting at 3.6mbs but not downloading at that.

thanks for the info only1, im defenitely signing up aswell, hopefully they boost the signal aswell cause i get trouble connecting on hsdpa/3g where i am, but 2meters out my door i can connect. very odd

po10cy Actual dl speed. I once dl'ed a 1.4MB file with firefox, half a second after I clicked save ff's dl notification said the dl was done.

Oh and does that mean that the data is free or the connection is free.. ??

data not free, upgrading to that service is what is free, they would never make data free man haha

hectic, if only all downloads regardless of size was that fast!

If the data is not free , Naaa, then it is not worth it ..

hahahaha i wish it was free

prolly not worth it for me either seeing that i only get gprs connection speeds i wanted to cancel my contract but then i gotta still pay them each month. so im tied down for another year and half

Hman wrote:po10cy Actual dl speed. I once dl'ed a 1.4MB file with firefox, half a second after I clicked save ff's dl notification said the dl was done.

And I bet your first thought was "WTF?"
Then you tried the file just to make sure it wasn't corrupt ed?

PhReaK_K wrote:how wil it work for sxcisting 3G users . Anythign special I would need to do ?

You need to go on www.vodacom4me.co.za and click on services; then subscribe to the HSDPA 3.6 service.

Note that you have to at least be in range of an existing HSDPA signal - if you can only connect with GPRS then it wouldn't do you much good.

It's a pity that the cost per Mb is not as low as that for ADSL.....
I had a GPRS connection last year, but dropped it not because of speed issues but because I ran up far too much just from doing regular browsing.

viceroy wrote:

Hman wrote:po10cy Actual dl speed. I once dl'ed a 1.4MB file with firefox, half a second after I clicked save ff's dl notification said the dl was done.

And I bet your first thought was "WTF?"
Then you tried the file just to make sure it wasn't corrupt ed?

Exactly

What do they charge per mb? Is it R2 per mb?

Nope, download speeds are still the same more or less, maybe slightly faster, but nothing to write home about...

Adv4nced, you can see the pricing details on the vodacom site...

I think its ridiculous them charging us for bloody speed increase now.
They charge us more than enough for the data...R2 per MB is hectic!!

If they really have to charge us for the speed increase at least they should do it like most of the overseas networks do, you pay a certain ammount for per MB for certain speeds.

Like lets say you are using normal 3Gb speeds - 384K = R1 per MB
then HSDPA speeds = R2 per MB and GPRS = R0.50 per MB.etc

But I still think rather leave the data price as is and then dont charge us for the speed increase.

I'd rather we pay say R100 for the faster speed, and have the data cheaper.

PsyCLown wrote:I think its ridiculous them charging us for bloody speed increase now.
They charge us more than enough for the data...R2 per MB is hectic!!

If they really have to charge us for the speed increase at least they should do it like most of the overseas networks do, you pay a certain ammount for per MB for certain speeds.

Like lets say you are using normal 3Gb speeds - 384K = R1 per MB
then HSDPA speeds = R2 per MB and GPRS = R0.50 per MB.etc

But I still think rather leave the data price as is and then dont charge us for the speed increase.

It's not R2 per MB, I'd be paying R4000 per month if it were.

I'd rather we pay say R100 for the faster speed, and have the data cheaper.

That kind of deal would only work if the faster speed could be guaranteed to everyone - I found out that the 3.6 service makes very little to no difference in dl speeds for myself. Quite depressing, actually. My download speeds are still limited to 25-35kbps even though the modem apparently has a HSDPA connection ( light blue light on modem indicates HSDPA connection )

I DL'ed a file at 154Kbps Saturday evening.

Edit: 25-35kbps is 3G speeds.

Hman wrote:I DL'ed a file at 154Kbps Saturday evening.

Edit: 25-35kbps is 3G speeds.

Yes, but my modem says it's connected to HSDPA ( light blue light ), not 3G ( dark blue light )

Hmmm. Yeah, that comes with the territory. (Cellular data connections being non reliable)

i havent had a performance increase... in fact, since subsrcibing to this rubbush, my speeds dropped from just under 200kbps to just over 100kbps.

I just got bough the 2GB HSDPA package from Vodacom.
They activated my card right there and said max 24 hours until my SIM activation went through and I could use the thing, but browsing Hellopeter and MYADSL I see some people have waited for up to a week for activation...

How fast was it for you guys.