Telkom's WiMAX service

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 2 April 2007

The official launch of Telkom’s WiMax service is scheduled for May this year. In the mean time its WiMax broadband trials will continue in Pretoria and Centurion, ‘…with coverage expansion plans on the books for Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban’ (Telkom’s WiMax to initially serve major cities, MyADSL, 2 April 2007).
 
Why WiMax?
 
‘WiMax will initially be used as a DSL replacement technology in areas where there is no ADSL coverage. Telkom said that many residents in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban who previously could not connect using ADSL will now be served by their WiMax offering when it is officially launched in May’ (Telkom’s WiMax to initially serve major cities, MyADSL, 2 April 2007).
 
In other words, consumers living in our major cities who previously couldn’t connect to Telkom’s ADSL service will be able to do it in May when Telkom officially launch their WiMax service.
 
How many of Telkom’s WiMax towers are already active?
 
Not many.
 
‘Telkom currently has 4 active towers in Pretoria which are being used for trialing purposes’ (Telkom’s WiMax to initially serve major cities, MyADSL, 2 April 2007).
 
Is WiMax trialing really necessary?
 
Yes.
 
‘There is a lot of hype about WiMax and its capabilities in the media, but real life testing is the only way to establish the true performance of this service’ (Telkom’s WiMax to initially serve major cities, MyADSL, 2 April 2007).
 
In other words, Telkom is playing it safe, which can only be a good thing.
 
Any results so far in regard to base station coverage?
 
Yes.
 
‘…Telkom said that they can achieve 15 – 25 km coverage from a base station in rural, line-of-sight areas. This shrinks to 6 – 7 km in metropolitan areas. Telkom further pointed out that geographical and other factors can seriously influence the coverage and throughput’ (Telkom’s WiMax to initially serve major cities, MyADSL, 2 April 2007).
 
In other words, base station coverage is much higher in ‘rural, line-of-sight areas’ than metropolitan areas. This is true while factors such as geography and others ‘can seriously influence the coverage and throughput.’
 
What about speeds achieved during the trials?
 
4 Mbps under suitable conditions.
 
‘During the trials Telkom said that they achieved 4 Mbps throughput to single customers. These speeds are obviously under suitable conditions, and for the trials they are launching a 512 Kbps downstream and 256 Kbps upstream service. Telkom plans to use WiMax in both metropolitan and rural areas to provision broadband to consumers’ (Telkom’s WiMax to initially serve major cities, MyADSL, 2 April 2007).
 
In other words, don’t expect lightning fast broadband speeds from Telkom’s WiMax service, although it will be better than to sit with a very slow dial up connection or no Internet connection at all.
 
ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) welcomes Telkom’s efforts to launch a viable WiMax service. We’re sure many South Africans will benefit from this.