ADSL South Africa - What is Mobile Broadband?

Click here for a full list of factors to consider when getting ADSL Broadband.

What is Mobile Broadband? It is an Internet service that offers Wireless Internet Access when one is on the go (mobile).

To simplify matters, ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) distinguishes between the various Wireless Broadband solutions available by breaking it up in two categories:

• Wireless Broadband - Wireless Solution fixed location. 

• Mobile Broadband - Wireless Solution when one is on the go (mobile). 

Wireless Broadband provides a wireless Internet solution to access the Internet from a fixed location while Mobile Broadband provides a wireless Internet solution to access the Internet while one is on the go (mobile).

Mobile Broadband falls under the following categories in terms of technology: GSM, GPRS, EDGE, 3G, 3G HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA+ and LTE.

• GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) was developed in the 1980's in Europe and was originally called the Groupe Spécial Mobile. GSM is a single unifying standard for digital mobile communications that makes international roaming possible today. At first it only served Europe but was quickly used in other parts of the world as well. It provides data transfer speeds of up to 9.6 Kilobits per second. 

• GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) is often referred to as "2.5G" because its a technology that saw first light between the second and third generations of mobile telephony. In other words, between 2G and 3G. Its a mobile data service (meaning you're not stuck at one place) available to GSM mobile phone users. It provides data transfer at speeds of up to 80 Kilobits per second by using unused TDMA channels in the GSM network. 

• EDGE  (Enhanced Data Rates for GM Evolution) also known as EGPRS acts as an enhancement to 2G and 2.5G GPRS networks. It works in GSM networks and can function on any network with GPRS deployed taking into consideration upgrades were implemented by the carrier. It is a technology that delivers broadband-like data speeds of up to 170 Kilobits per second. 

• 3G  (Third Generation) is a 3GPP compatible network with a UTRAN based radio access network. It was designed to provide high speed data transfer (384 Kilobits per second), video support calls and to support a highly-scalable service enabling architecture. 

• 3G HSDPA is a 3G enhancement that's performance is comparable to today's wireless LAN services. It can reach data transfer speeds of up to 1.8 Megabits per second. 

• High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) "...is a 3G mobile telephony protocol in the HSPA family with up-link speeds up to 5.76 Mbit/s. The name HSUPA was created by Nokia. The 3GPP does not support the name 'HSUPA', but instead uses the name Enhanced Uplink (EUL)" (Wikipedia). 

• Evolved High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA+) - "HSPA+, also known as Evolved High-Speed Packet Access is a wireless broadband standard defined in 3GPP release 7. HSPA+ provides HSPA data rates up to 56 Megabits per second (Mbit/s) on the downlink and 22 Mbit/s on the uplink through the use of a multiple-antenna technique known as MIMO (for “multiple-input and multiple-output”) and higher order modulation (64QAM). MIMO on CDMA based systems acts like virtual sectors to give extra capacity closer to the mast. The 56 Mbit/s and 22 Mbit/s represent theoretical peak sector speeds. The actual speed for a user will be lower. At cell edge and even at half the distance to the cell edge there may only be slight increase compared with 14.4 Mbit/s HSDPA unless a wider channel than 5 MHz is used. Future revisions of HSPA+ support up to 168 Mbit/s using multiple carriers" (Wikipedia).

• Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a next generation standards-based cellular technology which will offer superior broadband speeds. The commercial deployment of LTE is expected in the next few years. 

Want to keep the cost low? Buy data bundles if you would like to to keep the cost of data low while capping the costs of your monthly data bill. If you're not sure how much data you need it's best not to get a bundle at first. Give yourself 3 months without making use of a bundle. Work out the average data you used per month over that 3 month period. Take the average and compare it to the bundles available and make your choice.