Zim Mobile Internet Generaly bad with uploads?

Question

It seems that uploading files seems like a problem with our mobile internet providers here? I'm in the music biz and often have to send 40-800mb zip files of sessions we'll be working on. When I'm working form SA uploading via mobile is a breeze but it seems here its a different story. For example:

Powertel: This is hopeless in uploading even completed 8mb mp3 tracks.
Africom: Kinda bad aswell though it does have its good days but still bad (same technology as powertel?..mmm)
Econet: Good at times however you'll find while uploading you can hit speeds of 2mb/s then it goes to a crawl, then bursts again...and I dont think yousendit or dropbox is to blame here as they work just fine on fixed connections such as UMax.
Telecel: My personal favourite which Im using regularly now. This one seems the most stable and reliable though still the upload speed you get for an "HSDPA" is generally not what you'd get elsewhere like in South.

So just why are the country's mobile upload speeds bad. I mean if I can download an HD movie in 30-60min on my Econet connection, why on Earth does uploading a file take so long?

Answer 1

Most technologies you will realise that they were geared towards downloads not uploads. It has been the trend until the explosion of voip and soho.

By design, downloads speed is directly proportional to uploads ie, if you increase uploads speed, download speed decrease. There is now equipment available which can do uploads and downloads at same speed.. bt it comes at very high cost.

One other thing to note is the way our providers have been trying to reduce cost of mast aerial implementation and power consumption. They have been spacing boosters as further apart as possible to cover wide areas and long distances.

This reduces the number of mast needed per area hence cheap. Bt with wireless tech, the further the signal hav to travel, the less speed when downloading one can get.

Now if the isp wants to provide fast speed, the boosters have to be closer to each other and more power have to be pumped into them.

So you can guess which option our isp took!!

Comments

South Africa is just as bad. I can bet 3G in Zimbabwe is way better. SA mobile internet is 1. Expensive 2. Patchy!!