Vodacom has introduced a technology on its network called dual-carrier high-speed uplink packet access, or DC-HSUPA, that it said will speed up data uploads for consumers on 3G.
The technology is an evolution of high-speed packet access technology and is defined in Release 9 of the 3G standards developed by the 3G Partnership Project, a global collaboration between telecommunications associations.
DC-HSUPA uses “carrier aggregation” technology in the uplink to increase speeds.
Vodacom said it has become necessary to deploy the technology because of consumer demand to upload videos and images in applications such as Facebook and Instagram.
“Mobile network providers spend a lot of resources improving download speeds on the 3G and 4G networks and this has resulted in better download speeds while upload speeds have not improved at the same rate,” said Vodacom chief technology officer Andries Delport in a statement.
“By deploying DC-HSUPA, we are reacting to the demand created by social media and simultaneously improving user experience across social media platforms. As a result, our customers will be able to upload a one-minute video clip in 30 seconds and big images in milliseconds on Facebook and Instagram,” he said.
DC-HSUPA allows for uplink data to be transmitted over two 5MHz carriers. The feature offers an uplink peak rate twice as high as a single-carrier uplink peak rate on 3G UMTS networks, so the uplink peak data can be increased from 5,76Mbit/s to 11,5Mbit/s. — © 2016 NewsCentral Media
