Vodacom has made its 3.6Mbps HSDPA service available to customers, matching MTN's release of a similar service last week.
"Vodacom has extended the benefit of HSDPA 3.6 coverage, free to all our customers, for a period of three months across all 3G HSDPA coverage areas," says Dot Field, chief communications officer at Vodacom.
According to the company, customers who have an HSDPA 3.6-capable terminal or device, such as a "Vodafone Mobile Connect USB Modem, a Vodafone Mobile Connect Express Card or an embedded HSDPA 3.6 laptop", will be able to activate the service.
The HSDPA 3.6 service will be free to Vodacom customers until the end of April. "From May, the HSDPA 3.6 service will be offered to contract, 'Top-Up' and prepaid customers as a value-added service, at R49 per month, in addition to the current data charge levied," says Field.
MTN is also offering the service at no extra cost. "Users who connect to the MTN HSDPA network in 3.6Mbps-enabled areas will currently automatically receive the higher speeds," says the company.
According to Brian Seligmann, MTN's senior manager of data bearers, MTN plans to fully upgrade its network to support HSDPA at 3.6Mbps. The upgrade will take place through the year.
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