Uganda: What the Future of African Broadband Could Look Like - Testing Real-Life Lte in Kampala London — The subjective experience of using the Internet in Africa has always been a strange one. Having been using it for over 14 years, we know its got better but its sometimes hard to see it as anything but frustrating. Theres always cost, network or capacity restrictions that pull you down even if things speed up a bit. Russell Southwood looks at how LTE is working on Smiles network in Kampala and wonders whether this might be how it will be everywhere in the near future in Africa. For over a year I have been saying to anyone that will listen that LTE and video will be a game-changer in Africa. Friends and colleagues (particularly those in ICT4D tribe) have listened patiently, whilst their body language betrayed the thought that I might be in need of specialist medical intervention. The logic for arguing this case was based on the fact that You Tube was in the Top 5 of every country measured by Alexa and that was with the fairly terrible Internet speeds available. You only had to imagine the demand if you took away the speed constraint: the swirling circle of buffering just puts off people who dont have the time or patience. I hadnt actually used LTE myself before, just looked over peoples shoulders at it. So Ive been just under a week in Kampala with a Mi-Fi device supplied by Smile Telecom. The Mi-Fi device means that I can run my smartphone, laptop and iPad using a data connection. This means none of that irritating thing in some hotels where they charge you more for each device in that rather grasping way Ive come to associate with some African hotel Wi-Fi. The device is almost exactly the same size as an iPod and creates your own Wi-Fi hotspot. So you turn it on, pop it in your pocket and you have Wi-Fi wherever theres coverage. My driver and I couldnt find a particular address. Whip out the iPad and theres the little blue dot on Google maps guiding us in. You cant do this with data roaming because youd need a financial facility underwritten by three Wall Street banks to pay for it: whats the point of that? It works indoors or outdoors, which is not something every WiMAX vendor could say with confidence. But the real kicker is when you use video, it starts playing straight away and runs all the way through to the end. Yes, thats how online videos meant to run and once somebody starts showing off that Chameleone video on their phone, everyone of a certain age is going to want it.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 11:25:57 +0000
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