Telstra Launches HSDPA Network

Australia's Telstra has launched its HSDPA upgrade, after being built in just 10 months. Telstra Chief Executive Officer, Mr Sol Trujillo, and the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ericsson, Mr Carl-Henric Svanberg, switched on the new NEXT GTM (3GSM 850 MHz) network last Friday, with video calls to locations across regional Australia, including Thursday Island - far north QLD, Southport - TAS, Cape Byron - NSW and Broome - WA.

Mr Trujillo said Telstra shareholders' US$1 billion investment has created the world's geographically largest national 3G network. The HSDPA enabled network - the world's largest network of its type - has been rolled out in the 850MHz frequency band to cover over one quarter of Australia's landmass and more than 98 percent of the population.

Mr Svanberg said Telstra's advanced mobile broadband network was designed and built with an evolution path to support the future technology roadmap. Ericsson expects it to reach peak network speeds of up to 40Mbps by 2009, in line with the development of global standardisation.

"The NEXT GTM network's unprecedented scale and scope demonstrates how committed Telstra is to creating new customer experiences that match or surpass the best in the world," he said.

Telstra and Ericsson will continue to extend network coverage and upgrade software for faster speeds next year in readiness for the closure of the CDMA network in 2008.

The Mobile World subscriber database reports that Telstra ended the first half of this year with a little under 8.5 million customers, giving the operator a market share of 43%."

Posted to the site on 9th October 2006