Telstra has continued their tower upgrade program, landing a major milestone this week: Telstra has activated 5G towers in what they’re describing as all major Australian Cities. Following the activation of several sites in and around Melbourne and Sydney, Telstra now has active 5G coverage in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Launceston, Toowoomba and the Gold Coast.
Currently Telstra has 187 towers upgraded to 5G, and they’re well on track to reaching their goal of 200 towers upgraded by the end of 2018. Impressive numbers, but what do they mean for you today?
Personally, probably not a lot. As a customer you can’t get the HTC 5G Hub that Telstra has provisioned for their network yet, and there are no 5G ready mobile devices on the market. Coverage is still growing. However, what this means for Australia, and Telstra customers specifically, is that the 5G roll out is well underway for when devices are available, and secondly that any local teething issues with the network can start being ironed out well ahead of a larger device rollout.
One thing is for sure, faster mobile speeds with more bandwidth are something few people are going to complain about. With the state of the Australian NBN rapidly passing a joke and quickly entering a dismal failure territory for many users, technology like 5G may very well provide a service that rivals that of tradition ‘in the ground’ service provision, at least in Australia.
once the 5G network is up and running, I’ll be turning off my NBN. unless the service gets better. why am I paying $99.00 per month supposedly for NBN50 when I am getting peak times 12-15Mbps and of peak 20Mbps and when it rains I sometimes loose internet completely.
You must live next door to me!
Well if they offer unlimited data on 5G maybe it might be worth considering.
NBN 50Mbps speed, 1.5T quota at $90/mo
vs
5G 300Mbps speed, 100GB quota at $130/mo
which would u choose and why?
Neither. I pay 80 a month for unlimited data on the 100mb connection and average 94mb in peak time. 100gb is pointless when streaming comes into it.
I couldn’t live with only 100GB quote, especially with 4K streaming
Oh man, what sad admission – some of us have a real life though, not a virtual one. Hope you get well soon.
Optus has 200GB with an iPhone for less than that right now.
5G is a marketing term that encapsulate several forms of new technology. Advertising standards are not in place to validate telco’s claims. 5G needs a vast network of fibre to be deployed across a nation. 5G will only rival “in ground” if it is sitting on top of “in ground” fibre and there is direct line of sight to the consumer. As it stands in Australia 96% of downloaded data comes from fixed lines. NBN plan to spend $3B and they cant guarantee more than 6Mbs. The $800m upgrade will increase speed from 50mbs to 60mbs mid next year. So… Read more »
Very well put Mike for cutting through the fluff
5G is a marketing term, but in this context, it has a fairly specific meaning. We’re talking about 5G carrier networks providing a consumer and business-grade mobile voice & data service. 5G, like 4G before it, and (to a reasonable extent) 3G before that all rely on backhaul networks being in place. I would guess that a significant amount of the required backhaul either has been laid, or will be. Telcos are forever upgrading their capacity, as while 5G will deliver the possibility of faster speeds, 4G enhanced services can already reach gigabit speeds in some areas. I suspect that,… Read more »
Nervously waits for pricing details…
Sounds good Duncan , 5 g handsets wont be far away , and less delays in getting data sound great .
If only we all had good quality home internet that would be grouse ..
Maybe we could 5g the home internet via the handset 😉 .