Vodacom SA achieves 550Mbps over live LTE-A network

Vodacom South Africa has achieved download speeds of 549.99Mbps over a live LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) network. The speed trial – held at Vodacom’s regional office in Nelspruit (Mpumalanga) – featured carrier aggregation (CA) in three bands, namely 900MHz (10MHz), 1800MHz (10MHz) and 2100MHz (15MHz), in addition to 4×4 multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) and 256 QAM technologies. The company said: ‘The speed test is a great example of the LTE-A speeds which are possible if more spectrum is made available to mobile operators in South Africa. In this instance, it was possible to use the base station at the Nelspruit office for the test, as it presented an opportunity to refarm spectrum for LTE without needing to do the same over extensive neighbouring areas. It is difficult to replicate the same results over other wider parts of the network, as spectrum refarming 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.’