Hi guys,
There have been so many questions about the “up to 21 Mbps” Etisalat claimed, so I thought its time to write this blog on how Etisalat has been able to claim these speeds. I’ll try to cover the technical aspects of how Etisalat network supports these speeds and how you as customers can enjoy these speeds.
Before tackling the technical aspects, lets discuss the impact of the speed on the user experience. If you are a normal web site browsing customer, having around 600-700 Kbps is more than enough to get a very good user experience. For buffer-less Youtube viewing 1Mbps is enough. Only if you are a file downloader (such as movies, songs downloads from Torrent…etc) you will require very high speeds up to 21Mbps. So when you are selecting a Dongle to browse you need to look at the requirement you have & select accordingly.
So how does a network delivers you high speeds? Main requirement for 21 Mbps data rates is the HSPA+ technology (High Speed Packet Access). Etisalat is the only operator in Sri Lanka who has HSPA+ in all their 3G sites. Competition has only HSDPA & HSPA sites which allows only a 3.6Mbps speeds.
Apart from the 3G tower which is basically known as “NODE B”, a telecommunication network has a few other key elements which has to support high speeds in order to deliver these speeds to the end users. These elements are basically RNC, SGSN, GGSN & ISP (Internet Link). From these elements main bottleneck arises from the link between NODE B to RNC which is also known as the “backhaul “. This is where all other operators failed to deliver the promised speeds due to their slow internet tunnels enabled through pipes called E1s. Where as in Etisalat the backhaul is completely IP based & therefore Etisalat can proudly say that we are the only network which actually has a 4G enabled network in Sri Lanka. Also all our node-Bs are hardware ready for LTE (4G) . When the time comes we just have to do a software upgrade to have 4G in our network. The key point to note is that since all network elements in Etisalat architecture supports high speeds of 21Mbps, Etisalat network theoretically can deliver 21Mbps speeds.
But as all of you may have experienced, actual speeds delivered may not be 21 Mbps but somewhere around 14Mbps..Why is that? There are quite a few reasons for this & main points are as below.
Dongle
This may be an quite a obvious point, but it’s something most people have misunderstood.. To enjoy 21Mbps speeds you NEED to have a 21Mbps supporting dongle. If your dongle is just a 3.6Mbps dongle, then the maximum speed you can get is 3.6Mbps. In terms of specifications for the dongle, it has to be HSPA+ dongle, it should support 15 codes (encryption keys) & should be of category 14.
Distance to the Tower
This has a huge impact on the speeds you may actually get. If you are very closer to the tower you can get HSPA+ signals…averagely speaking about 1Km radius. At 1.5Km you are probably getting HSPA & up to about 3km you’ll only be getting WCDMA signals of 384kbps. These figures may vary according to the number of 3G users already using the tower, so please note that above distance information is just average figures.
Number of users
3.75G signal is a shared resource. What this means is that bandwidth or the speed of 21Mbps is shared between users. So if there are a lot of people latched in to the 3.75G network then the lower the speed you get. But the good news is that speeds are not proportionately divided. That is if there are 10 user you will not be reduced to 2.1Mbps, you will get much higher speeds than that. Bad news is when the number of users increase, the radius of coverage of HSPA+ will also reduce, think of it as your 3.75G coverage will shrink with every new user who logs in, that’s the nature of HSPA technology.
Environment & Atmospheric conditions
3.75G signals are affected by environment conditions like humidity, rain or wind. You probably have experienced that on a heavy raining day you only get HSPA signals & not HSPA+ signals.
All in all, above conditions are the limitation of 3.75G technology. But the huge capacity that we have built in to the network has enabled our users to enjoy the highest speeds possible in Sri Lanka (Not just testing sitesJJJ). So if you have a 21 Mbps dongle & if you are in a good coverage area you can simply plug in & enjoy very high speeds of around 14Mbps.
Hope I made enough sense in this blog, I tried not to use too much technical jargon, but I know that there are so many guys out there who know in & out of these techy things, so your comments are more than welcome to come & make this forum more educating.
Have a Great Day!!!
There have been so many questions about the “up to 21 Mbps” Etisalat claimed, so I thought its time to write this blog on how Etisalat has been able to claim these speeds. I’ll try to cover the technical aspects of how Etisalat network supports these speeds and how you as customers can enjoy these speeds.
Before tackling the technical aspects, lets discuss the impact of the speed on the user experience. If you are a normal web site browsing customer, having around 600-700 Kbps is more than enough to get a very good user experience. For buffer-less Youtube viewing 1Mbps is enough. Only if you are a file downloader (such as movies, songs downloads from Torrent…etc) you will require very high speeds up to 21Mbps. So when you are selecting a Dongle to browse you need to look at the requirement you have & select accordingly.
So how does a network delivers you high speeds? Main requirement for 21 Mbps data rates is the HSPA+ technology (High Speed Packet Access). Etisalat is the only operator in Sri Lanka who has HSPA+ in all their 3G sites. Competition has only HSDPA & HSPA sites which allows only a 3.6Mbps speeds.
Apart from the 3G tower which is basically known as “NODE B”, a telecommunication network has a few other key elements which has to support high speeds in order to deliver these speeds to the end users. These elements are basically RNC, SGSN, GGSN & ISP (Internet Link). From these elements main bottleneck arises from the link between NODE B to RNC which is also known as the “backhaul “. This is where all other operators failed to deliver the promised speeds due to their slow internet tunnels enabled through pipes called E1s. Where as in Etisalat the backhaul is completely IP based & therefore Etisalat can proudly say that we are the only network which actually has a 4G enabled network in Sri Lanka. Also all our node-Bs are hardware ready for LTE (4G) . When the time comes we just have to do a software upgrade to have 4G in our network. The key point to note is that since all network elements in Etisalat architecture supports high speeds of 21Mbps, Etisalat network theoretically can deliver 21Mbps speeds.
But as all of you may have experienced, actual speeds delivered may not be 21 Mbps but somewhere around 14Mbps..Why is that? There are quite a few reasons for this & main points are as below.
Dongle
This may be an quite a obvious point, but it’s something most people have misunderstood.. To enjoy 21Mbps speeds you NEED to have a 21Mbps supporting dongle. If your dongle is just a 3.6Mbps dongle, then the maximum speed you can get is 3.6Mbps. In terms of specifications for the dongle, it has to be HSPA+ dongle, it should support 15 codes (encryption keys) & should be of category 14.
Distance to the Tower
This has a huge impact on the speeds you may actually get. If you are very closer to the tower you can get HSPA+ signals…averagely speaking about 1Km radius. At 1.5Km you are probably getting HSPA & up to about 3km you’ll only be getting WCDMA signals of 384kbps. These figures may vary according to the number of 3G users already using the tower, so please note that above distance information is just average figures.
Number of users
3.75G signal is a shared resource. What this means is that bandwidth or the speed of 21Mbps is shared between users. So if there are a lot of people latched in to the 3.75G network then the lower the speed you get. But the good news is that speeds are not proportionately divided. That is if there are 10 user you will not be reduced to 2.1Mbps, you will get much higher speeds than that. Bad news is when the number of users increase, the radius of coverage of HSPA+ will also reduce, think of it as your 3.75G coverage will shrink with every new user who logs in, that’s the nature of HSPA technology.
Environment & Atmospheric conditions
3.75G signals are affected by environment conditions like humidity, rain or wind. You probably have experienced that on a heavy raining day you only get HSPA signals & not HSPA+ signals.
All in all, above conditions are the limitation of 3.75G technology. But the huge capacity that we have built in to the network has enabled our users to enjoy the highest speeds possible in Sri Lanka (Not just testing sitesJJJ). So if you have a 21 Mbps dongle & if you are in a good coverage area you can simply plug in & enjoy very high speeds of around 14Mbps.
Hope I made enough sense in this blog, I tried not to use too much technical jargon, but I know that there are so many guys out there who know in & out of these techy things, so your comments are more than welcome to come & make this forum more educating.
Have a Great Day!!!
