Vodafone NZ trials 4G LTE

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#157925 19-Aug-2008 10:17

I wonder now that Vodafone has a fixed line arm how they will justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars in future wireless technologies like LTE 4G, when they also now need to consider the fixed side of the business.

How much revenue per customer will Vodafone need reinvest into both Fixed and wireless?

For the last 10 years its always been mobiles mobiles mobiles, so the money has gone back into mobiles. Now they need to keep divert some of that mobiles profit into Ihug and the fixed side of the business.

JoeBloggs

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Ultimate Geek

#157937 19-Aug-2008 11:19

Ihug was a successful business before they bought it. The tricky part has been making sure the transition doesn't impede growth for either entity. Vodafone would have been trialling this technology with or without the Ihug acquisition. There's more than enough money to develop both mobile and fixed.

Geektastic

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#157941 19-Aug-2008 11:24

I suspect that they will eventually become one and the same.

BT in the UK now offer a single unit that provides high speed broadband wireless routing in the home, wireless telephone in the home and a 3G handset - a more elegant version of VF's Home Phone Plus, but with 8 mbit broadband (unlimited) a wireless home phone (free evening & weekend calls) and 50 minutes on the 3G - all for NZ$78 a month equivalent...!

Chompchomp

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#157959 19-Aug-2008 12:54

Why is it that you geeks can't spell? are you talking about a Vodafone 'trail'? or a vodafone 'trial'?
The way I see it, ya'll should go back to school.
n00bs.

Geektastic

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#157962 19-Aug-2008 13:01

Chompchomp: Why is it that you geeks can't spell? are you talking about a Vodafone 'trail'? or a vodafone 'trial'?
The way I see it, ya'll should go back to school.
n00bs.

When I was at school, we were taught that sentences are correctly begun with capital letters. Also, that neither is "ya'll" a word in the English language nor would "you all should go back to school" be correct; it would be "you should all go back to school."

Perhaps those in glass houses....

scottjpalmer

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#157998 19-Aug-2008 14:11

Couldn't agree more Geektastic. I have fixed the initial typo, clearly a slip of the fingers rather than a lack of spelling ability on langi's part.

Chompchomp I see you are very new to our forums, I suggest you read the rules carefully and contribute positively in the future rather than hack someone down from your first day here.

Consider this your warning.

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pwner

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2degrees

#158000 19-Aug-2008 14:16

LTE is actually access independant, it is designed to be used accross fixed line, mobile and wimax to name a few. it is basically a mix of old school Telco signalling for backwards compatibility and IP and SIP based protocols. The improvement in the air interface is what you are really talking about here and that is E-UTRA.

My personal feeling is that for LTE/E-UTRA to be effective it needs a few things
1. The ability to use 2100 or 900 or Wimax spectrum, only the government wants to see another spectrum auction.
2. Vodafone need to sort out their backhaul, this is happening in the cities slowly but then again we don't even have 7.2Mb/s HSDPA yet and E-UTRA is ~20x that, backhaul takes time and isnt cheap.
3. Customer demand for rediculously high speed mobile data, sure they can demo HD etc over it but who will actually use it on a regular basis and pay a reasonable rate for it.

oh and did i mention that it would be another complete set of equipment at the cell sites and in the core, talking serious cash there, and they cannot just turn off the old kit they need to run both at the same time for at least a year i would guess.

Any posts are personal comments and not that of my employer

Geektastic

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#158007 19-Aug-2008 14:33

pwner:
LTE is actually access independant, it is designed to be used accross fixed line, mobile and wimax to name a few. it is basically a mix of old school Telco signalling for backwards compatibility and IP and SIP based protocols. The improvement in the air interface is what you are really talking about here and that is E-UTRA.

My personal feeling is that for LTE/E-UTRA to be effective it needs a few things
1. The ability to use 2100 or 900 or Wimax spectrum, only the government wants to see another spectrum auction.
2. Vodafone need to sort out their backhaul, this is happening in the cities slowly but then again we don't even have 7.2Mb/s HSDPA yet and E-UTRA is ~20x that, backhaul takes time and isnt cheap.
3. Customer demand for rediculously high speed mobile data, sure they can demo HD etc over it but who will actually use it on a regular basis and pay a reasonable rate for it.

oh and did i mention that it would be another complete set of equipment at the cell sites and in the core, talking serious cash there, and they cannot just turn off the old kit they need to run both at the same time for at least a year i would guess.

When I read that, it was hard to avoid feeling like Gibbs listening to Abby....! ;-)

pwner

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2degrees

#158078 19-Aug-2008 18:38

yeah sorry didnt mean to sound like that, although i don't understand the Gibbs and Abby thing.

i guess the main thing is that upgrading might be simple for the end user, but for the network its a big project and i think that the 2010 timeframe would be pretty tight, they might have a Red Zone up and going by then but i can't see the network overhauled in that time.

Any posts are personal comments and not that of my employer

johnr

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#158084 19-Aug-2008 19:00

pwner: yeah sorry didnt mean to sound like that, although i don't understand the Gibbs and Abby thing.

NCIS

Fraktul

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#158107 19-Aug-2008 20:01

pwner:
LTE is actually access independant, it is designed to be used accross fixed line, mobile and wimax to name a few. it is basically a mix
2. Vodafone need to sort out their backhaul, this is happening in the cities slowly but then again we don't even have 7.2Mb/s HSDPA yet and E-UTRA is ~20x that, backhaul takes time and isnt cheap.
3. Customer demand for rediculously high speed mobile data, sure they can demo HD etc over it but who will actually use it on a regular basis and pay a reasonable rate for it.

Hopefully this is moving along a bit quicker now with the vector roll out to exchanges at the same time...number of times I have gotten <10kbps on my HSDPA connection with full signal strength - sigh.

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exportgoldman

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#158122 19-Aug-2008 20:24

martin308: More importantly why is VF looking at this?

Theyve clearly shown that voice and sms is their primary focus and they dont care about mobile data.

Vodafone are focused on voice/sms because thats where the market is, and is moving to data. The average joe doesn't use data on their mobile phone but now they can with the $1/day on the days you use it prepay mobile plan.

It's a good deal compared to what Vodafone were offering :-)

martin308:
Does this increase the quality of my calls somehow?

No, but Vodafone turning back on the Full Rate voice codec the week before last DOES improve the quality of your calls, and I imagine took a lot of data/backhaul etc engineering to achieve.

Vodafone do listen, and they are making changes based on what people want - perhaps not what the first movers want because they are too far ahead of the market but they do listen.

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

Chompchomp

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#158278 20-Aug-2008 11:01

Are you guys paranoid? Thanks for correcting the typo, and obviously thanks for correcting me on my horrendous grammatical errors. So 'ya'll' isn't a word anymore? Crap. Maybe I hang out with Americans too much. Appologies also, I agree with the moderator, I should be way more nicerer in my first post. Friends? Cool.

Anyways, on another note, how come a lot of people on this website are grumpy with Vodafone? I'm guessing a good majority of geekzone users understand tech systems and maintenance coding etc and surely if said users know all this then VF should be given a fair amount of slack.

I understand that all we (myself included) want is for our texts to get through without delay and for 3G to be up and running in every part of this awesome country and for VF to be focusing more on mobile data systems blah blah blah. But do you guys remember what it was like playing in the schoolground pretending we had Batman/Dick Tracey style wrist communicators on? Well I did anyway and I have to say that since those crazy, heady days of '86 we've come a long way. We should be congratulating VF and Telecom for their achievements. Round of applause please!!!!

freitasm

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#158286 20-Aug-2008 11:24

Chompchomp: But do you guys remember what it was like playing in the schoolground pretending we had Batman/Dick Tracey style wrist communicators on? Well I did anyway and I have to say that since those crazy, heady days of '86 we've come a long way.

In '86 I was drinking beer in the pub next to the Uni... For me it's more like '76.

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Chompchomp

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#158293 20-Aug-2008 11:48

Tru true, and good job too, but you get my drift yes?
Chch

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