Telstra focuses on 700MHz LTE boost

Australian carrier Telstra has accelerated the launch of LTE services on its 700MHz network and now expects to take LTE coverage to 90 per cent of the Australian population by the end of January 2015 after switching on LTE700 in all major cities.

The company said it plans to switch on 4G on 700MHz services in January 2015 to cover a three kilometre radius of all capital business districts and 50 regional locations and will expand commercial trials of these services to more than 20 additional metropolitan and regional centers in the lead up to January, with Sydney, Adelaide, Darwin, Bundaberg, Yamba and Sarina coming online next week.

Telstra aims to have more than one million 700MHz ready devices in customers’ hands by the end of year.

According to Chief Operations Officer Kate McKenzie, Telstra has invested in double the holdings of 700MHz spectrum than any other carrier, with 2×20MHz blocks. The company has made a A$1.3bn (€920m) investment to add 700MHz and 2600MHz spectrum and will also expand the use of carrier aggregation services, combining the 700MHz and 1800MHz bands to give customers with compatible devices theoretical peak network speeds up to 300Mbps.

Almost all the latest smartphones, tablets and mobile broadband devices are set to be 700-ready, with a total of 20 devices expected to be in Telstra’s range by Christmas.

“We have been working with the industry and global carriers to drive the use of 4G 700 and set it as the standard for 4G services of the future. That will allow us to assemble a wide range of 700-ready compatible devices ahead of full-launch in January,” said McKenzie.

“We’re staying ahead of this demand by using the 700 MHz band and aggregation techniques to massively increase network capacity. This will allow us to offer customers, with compatible devices, Australia’s best and most reliable mobile service,” she added.

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