While everyone is speaking about the increasing popularity of smartphones and the rise of the internet-connected tablets, voice calls and SMS are still growing. This, at least, is the experience of Vodafone Malta, which has just been confirmed as the operator with the quickest web browsing performance, the fastest file download performance and the fastest file upload among all mobile radio networks in Malta. The operator was also certified as having the best speech quality of voice service on the islands.
This certification was provided through an independent study conducted by German company P3 Communications GmbH, one of Europe’s leading providers of radio network testing, independent measurements and audits of service quality.
“We strongly believe that there is still a lot of growth both as regards voice and also SMS users,” according to Alexandre Froment-Curtil, head of marketing at Vodafone Malta. “Customers benefitting from better prices will find it easier to migrate from fixed line to mobile conversations for convenience. In the last four quarters Vodafone Malta has had traffic of approximately 270 million minutes of voice on its network and around 270 million SMSs sent from Vodafone numbers. Vodafone Malta is seeing a year on year increase of around 10 per cent to 15 per cent in usage depending on the service used. We realise that Vodafone Unlimited plans are greatly increasing usage as well.
“Moreover, data traffic is growing strongly with over 100 terabytes of traffic transported over the last four quarters. We can easily say that the year on year growth is driven by the adoption of smartphones and Vodafone’s all inclusive smartphone tariffs. Many customers have ported in to be on the Vodafone’s network which is considered the best network for data.”
Data traffic will continue to increase with smartphones, but also with new services such as tablets including the Apple iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Furthermore we will definitely see trends changing with the introduction of machine-to-machine services such as Enemalta’s smart metering, added Mr Froment-Curtil.
To cater for the needs of the increasing demands in voice, SMS and data traffic, last year Vodafone completed an upgrade on its network to provide HSDPA and HSUPA download and upload speeds that won it the certification from Germany.
“Our network has been upgraded to download speed of 14.4Mps and upload speed of 2 Mbps,” said Sandro Pisani, head of technology at the mobile operator. “These are theoretical speeds but we can comfortably say that customers may actually experience an average download speed of 4.5Mbps with peaks reaching close to 10Mbps. These speeds vary depending on the capabilities of the device being used.”
So in real terms how can users benefit from such high speeds?
“On smartphones, high speeds mean that an individual would not have to wait for a YouTube video for example. Similarly high speeds drastically reduce waiting time for an e-mail to download and it would also economise on time when someone would need to send a picture in a wizz. Moreover, customers will be able to improve their experience from their current fixed internet when using Vodafone internet keys.”
Vodafone describes last year’s network upgrade as being ‘environmentally friendly”. The €12 million investment in network modernisation involved replacing all Vodafone’s 3G base stations with a new generation of base stations from Nokia Siemens Networks. It is anticipated that the new radio access network infrastructure will be consuming around 25 per cent less energy than the older models, revealed Mr Pisani.