Ahead of the national launch of 4G services later in the year, the company has taken the step to introduce a pilot service, three months after first switching on its 4G base stations using LTE technology.
“This commercial pilot will give some of our customers a taste of the faster speeds, greater capacity and quicker response times that can be available for mobile services on 4G ahead of our national launch in major capital cities and selected regional centres later this year,” said David Thodey, CEO at Telstra.
Telstra’s first 4G launch will use both dual mode 4G and 3G HSPA technology, and operate across the 1800MHz and 850MHz bands. The dual mode gives end-users the access to switch to high-speed HSPA technology across the Telstra mobile network, which covers 99% of the Australian population.
“Australian businesses already tell us they want fast, reliable mobile broadband with more than two million customers connecting to our network for internet on the go,” added Thodey. “Our investment in next-generation 4G mobile technology will help meet Australia’s growing demand for faster speeds and create additional capacity in our network.”
A commitment to delivering fast mobile broadband in the region is clear outlined by Telstra, but the company would not be drawn on declaring achievable speeds for download and upload speeds over its new LTE network. “Due to factors such as distance from base station, local conditions, user numbers, hardware and software configuration,” a Telstra spokesperson told local media sources the company did not even have a ball park figure on possible speeds, and could only go as far to confirm the network will be faster than existing HSPA+ speeds.
