Vodafone launches 4G dongle, Wi-Fi unit

6

vodafone-1-1

news National mobile operator Vodafone has launched two new mobile broadband devices — a USB dongle and a Wi-Fi unit — that will allow customers to access its new 4G mobile network at theoretical speeds up to 150Mbps, due to their support of the so-called ‘Category 4’ standard for mobile broadband.

The Vodafone Mobile Broadband USB stick and the Vodafone Pocket WiFi are both ‘Category 4’ (‘Cat 4’) enabled, which means customers can reach theoretical speeds up to 150Mbps. The new devices will allow customers to take full advantage of Vodafone’s lightning fast 4G network, which is built on the company’s contiguous 20MHz spectrum holdings in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Customers can use the Vodafone Pocket WiFi as a portable hotspot, allowing them to connect up to ten devices at once. Vodafone is offering a 15 percent discount for customers who purchase a 4G Mobile Broadband USB Stick or Pocket WiFi device on their existing postpaid account. The offer runs until 2 April 2014.

Vodafone’s General Manager of Devices, Katie Turkal, said: “We are seeing a strong demand for mobile broadband products, especially from people who don’t want a permanent fixed-broadband connection, students, those living in share accommodation and people who simply don’t want to be locked into a contract.”

“Increasingly, Australians are ditching fixed internet connections in favour of the convenience and portability of mobile data. What’s more Vodafone 4G can offer speeds up to two and a half times faster than standard ADSL connection.”

“According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD)* latest statistics the wireless broadband penetration in Australia surged 13% between December 2012 and June 2013. The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that at June 2013, there were 6.15 million mobile wireless internet subscribers, an increase of five per cent on the previous year. Mobile internet is becoming increasingly popular and people want access to fast reliable data speeds.”

“Taking the internet to the beach, on the train, or to the cafe is what customers increasingly want,” Turkal said. Pricing for the two units is as follows:

vodafone-pricing

Image credit: Vodafone

6 COMMENTS

  1. Renai, what exactly is “so called” about Cat 4 LTE?

    LTE air interfaces, like all HSUPA releases before it, like all HSDPA releases before it, and like all UMTS releases before it, are defined by 3GPP.

    The original LTE (3GPP release 8) defined 5 categories of LTE, from Cat 1 (10 Mbps) to Cat 5 (300 Mbps). These are international standards and as well defined as they can be, there is nothing “so called” about them!

  2. The whole article sounds like an advert to me, are you getting a kick back from Vodafone Renai ?????

  3. ” lightning fast 4G network” and “can reach theoretical speeds up to 150Mbps” are really two different things.

    Latency a reflection of the time it takes for data travese the network whilst 150mbps is the amount of data capable of traversing the network in the given time/latency.

    Now mobile phone networks are notoriously slow when it comes to latency whilst the claim that customers can reach 150mbps is quite dubious.

    I know how much bandwidth VHA have in Sydney at a particular megapop and 150mbps is a sizeable quantity of what they have provisioned.

    You might reach 150mbps at 3am (and even then you would be competing with the the insomniac brigade) so ultimately, for real world purposes, no one will ever get 150mbps, ever.

    If i was the ACCC claims like this should be seriously challenged. Time and again providers get away with offering oversubscribed, congested services, making outlandish claims that the media are happy to publish with minimal caveats (coz it sounds just so clunky you know to warn customers that proffered service is seriously compromised)

    As for the rest of the article, $50 bucks for 8Gb is just such an utter ripoff especially since the bulk of the usage comes off a 10 gbps Akamai peering point that is located in the major megapops and would probably be costing $0.000010 per MB.

    Lastly how the hell can this Director of VHA claim they are seeing strong demand when their churn loss is in a terminal dive. Strong demand for their competitors services more like it.

    • 1984, I won’t say your comment is wrong, it’s just that… ok, it’s wrong.

      Nowhere in the article is latency mentioned. The statement that the network is “lightning fast” is more to do with throughput, which is again covered when theoretical maximum of said throughput is mentioned.

      On the subject of latency, I’m not sure how you can say mobile networks are “notoriously slow” in regards to latency. Even on 3G, I enjoy sub 30ms pings locally (Perth) and no more than 90ms Australia wide. No doubt 4G will be lower still.

      Finally, saying the ACCC should challenge anything about the claimed maximum theoretical throughput is ridiculous. Vodafone and any other telco or ISP quite rightly advertise “up to” a certain speed. I know customers used to get bent out of shape when ADSL2 came out, saying they were misled about speeds when they got less than 24Mbps, when in reality, no ISP promises 24Mbps, the same way Vodafone aren’t promising 150Mbps on their 4G network.

Comments are closed.