42Mbps by Safaricom is the next level, Orange Kenya to follow suit

In Kenya, subscribers accessing internet through mobile phones stood at 5.3 million during the period under review, out of which Safaricom controlled 4.3 million users or 88 per cent of the market share.

“14.3 million Kenyans have internet access which represents only 34 per cent of the population. Majority of these are also youth” said Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore in a speech during the Connected Kenya Summit 2012 as he expressed a desire to see internet access available to majority of Kenyans.

According to the latest CCK statistics, by September 2011, Bharti Airtel had 8.49 per cent of internet subscriptions in Kenya. Safaricom had 79.45 per cent of the subscriptions while Telkom has 2.15 per cent

Well ladies and gentlemen; the competition seems to be getting tougher and tougher as every player tries to up the game when it comes to mobile broadband. This has become evident with the recent launch of the 3.75G mobile broadband by Airtel Kenya a month ago. However Airtel have not done much to the quality other than promote the slow than ever speeds that they have had since they were able to offer data services. Don’t get it twisted about my claims but hey I do believe in quality and whatever you say in your adverts should be a true image of the purported services blah blah blah. It’s funny that Airtel has taken no initiative in market penetration with regard to mobile phones that will see data consumption sky rocket as compared to Safaricom who have low end Huawei phones as well as other brand s like Nokia and Samsung. Without a market penetration strategy, Airtel Kenya will always be playing catch up to the market leader Safaricom and that is just the way it is.

Well Safaricom seems to have woken up and come next week they will have to use the silver bullet against Airtel Kenya’s 21.1Mbps by launching 42Mbps mobile broadband starting with subscribers within Nairobi Central Business District, Kileleshwa, Kilimani and Westlands. Orange Kenya has also promised to follow suit. But why not use the whole of Nairobi as pilot rather than starting with upmarket areas which I am very sure are over served by WiMax and Cable.  This is very good news for those who have HSDPA+ hardware since you will be able to enjoy true mobile broadband, hoping that unlimited internet will not have caps or will not be throttled or let’s just say that the throttling will be revised upwards to 2MB (That’s my wishful thinking). Safaricom has already ordered for 42Mbps dongles and all we can hope for is that they will retail at a fair price as compared to the 21.1Mbps that saw not so much uptake since the likes of Orange and Orange Kenya were retailing there’s at less than five thousand shillings. I also hope that they will be able to advice consumers on the exact areas of coverage given the fact that Nairobi has so many dead spots (South C). I do believe that Mr. Bob Collymore will do the right thing since he has taken over the marketing role seriously and will be more hands on than before. Come next week I hope to see a change on my phone when it comes to speed and stability (did I say it’s compatible?). I am post ponding my data bundle purchase till the day 42Mbps goes live. So what does this technology really mean? How does it work and how do you tell that its evolved HSDPA and not LTE or 4G? Well check out the FAQ that I have been able to come up.

1.    What is 42Mbps?

42Mbps is the maximum theoretical download speeds, achievable using the state-of-art HSPA+ Dual-Cell Carrier technology.

2.    What is dual-cell carrier technology?

Dual-cell carrier technology is a natural evolution of HSPA by means of carrier aggregation in the downlink. The basic idea of the multicarrier feature is to achieve better resource utilization and spectrum efficiency by means of joint resource allocation and load balancing across the downlink carriers.

3.    What is the difference between LTE and 42Mbps?

42Mbps is a wireless broadband standard based on HSPA that is defined in 3GPP UMTS release 8based on HSPA+ Dual Cell technology, 3GPP standard Release 8.
Advanced HSPA network can theoretically support up to 42Mbit/sec with a single 5 MHz carrier for Rel8 (64-QAM + MIMO), in good channel condition.

LTE is another 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Much of the work is based on Release 8. LTE has all-IP flat networking architecture

LTE supports peak download rates of 326.4 Mbit/sec for 4x4 antennas, and 172.8 Mbit/sec for 2x2 antennas (utilizing 20 MHz of spectrum)

4.    What are the expected download and upload speed with a 42Mbps HSPA+ USB modem?

The maximum theoretically download and upload speed of a HSPA+ modem are 42Mbps and 11Mbps.

Within 42Mbps HSPA+ coverage area, the average download speed is between 3 to 10Mbps, and the average upload speed is between 0.5 to 1.5Mbps.

T&C : connection speed may vary due to congestion, distance from the base station, local conditions, internet conditions, server speeds, location, network performance, mobile phone/modems and application used.

5.    Can my 7.2Mbps modem get 42Mbps speed?

The 7.2Mbps modem is not able to reach the speed of 42Mbps but able to reach the maximum speed of 7.2Mbps.

6.    What can I use it for with a 42Mbps HSPA+ modem?

With a 42Mbps HSPA+ modem, you can enjoy better internet surfing experience and online gaming experience as it has low latency. You will also enjoy great video viewing experience in SD or HD format.

7.    I am in non-HSPA+ coverage area, will my 42Mbps HSPA+ modem still work?

User will get the speed of up to 3.6Mbps or up to 21Mbps using 42Mbps HSPA+ modem in a non-HSPA+ coverage area.

8.    Why is that my device (for e.g. iPad), cannot achieve the maximum speed of 42Mbps?

Check on the hardware and connectivity specification as the data speed of different devices may vary.

iPad 3 for example, can attain a maximum speed of 42Mbps.