Mid-November is the ETA for Cell C to upgrade JHB and Pretoria broadband speeds...

I must be one of the most ardent followers of this one - for years now South Africans have been sitting on Cell C to upgrade their outdated EDGE data network, to one that can compete with the likes of Vodacom and MTN.

While some South African cities have already been upgraded to the HSPA+ 900/2100 network in recent weeks, users inland in JHB and Pretoria have been left waiting...
Finally, though it seems that the moment we have been waiting for so patiently, is almost upon us.
The News section of the Cell C website, today reports that Cell C have won the 2010 Mobile Broadband Service of the Year award (congrats Cell C!), at the Annual MyBroadband Conference held at Vodaworld yesterday.

In there somewhere it mentions that the JHB and Pretoria upgrade is scheduled for mid-November... I hope that means November 2010... :)
Watch this space... the second that my Nokia N97 indicates anything even hinting at a quicker data connection, I will be jumping on here to post about it.
On the other hand, Cell C could maybe just give me a call beforehand, offering a free tryout of their new "4Gs" data network? ;)

Come on Cell C - you know you wanna!

Related articles

• Nigeria, major growth area for Mobile Broadband deployment , CDMA (vanguardngr.com)
• UPDATE 1-S.Africa's Telkom launches mobile phone unit (reuters.com)

Read More

Dear Cell C - is Johannesburg one of South Africa's less important cities?

Here comes some more Cell C ranting from my corner of the world...
Every few days now I am hearing news of another South African city being upgraded to Cell C's new "4Gs" network.

The order in which they are rolling out though, seems rather odd I have to say.
One would reasonably expect that Cell C would want to address the bigger centres in the country first - unless they were just scared that their network may not take that kind of strain as they launched their "4Gs" data offering...

So as I continue my rant, let me first tip my virtual hat to the fine folk in Port Elizabeth.
Lovely as it is though, why was P.E. chosen as the launch city for Cell C's 4Gs network?
I don't really get it at all - maybe somebody with knowledge of the inner workings of Cell C would like to comment here and fill me in...?
Surely a launch of such huge importance for Cell C would have been better suited to one of our larger cities?
Some justification of the launch city choice is offered here, but I am still not convinced...

So far these are the South African cities that Cell C has upgraded to the "4Gs" standard:

- Port Elizabeth
- Bloemfontein
- East London
- Cape Town
- Durban & Pietermaritzburg
- George (announced today)

That's great for them, but how about coming inland a bit guys?
JHB is only the commercial hub of the country you know, and your loyal fanbase here is crawling along at painful speeds.
I bet that if I go onto www.cellc.co.za and "Tell Trevor", my comment will just get ignored anyway...

p.s. Cell C - perhaps if you offered ME some kind of free try-out of your new 4Gs data package when it actually reaches JHB, I may just stop ranting so much and instead start raving...! :)

Related articles

• Find out comprehensive information about the Port Elizabeth region of Garden Route (gardenroute.mydestinationinfo.com)
• Testing the new CellC data packages (marcforrest.com)
• Cell C launches first HSPA+ 900 MHz network in Africa (intomobile.com)

Read More