With all this talk of LTE not being included on the Nexus 4 and a number of people pointing out the lack of coverage being a factor in this NOT being an issue for them, Optus has today advised that they are expanding their 4G network to include customers in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast and also to the Brisbane CBD.
Optus has switched on four 4G sites at Surfers Paradise and is also looking at switching on additional sites at Surfers Paradise in December. In Brisbane, Optus will switch on a further 5 sites next week before a wider 4G rollout to Brisbane in December and January 2013. With the addition of Surfers Paradise and Brisbane, Optus now has 6 markets which also includes Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Newcastle. Optus is still maintaining and upgrading their 3G coverage in QLD advising further upgrades and new sites are planned over the next 12 months in the south-east Queensland region.
Customers in Brisbane and Surfers Paradise wanting to take advantage of the new 4G service can check out the 4G enabled Samsung Galaxy S III which Optus has available on a variety of plans on the Optus website.
Took a punt when I upgraded to the Samsung S3 4g and live in country NSW. Had a chance to access 4g for a week while in Sydney. Hurry up Optus and role it out in Orange, Bathurst area. Quicker than my DSL.
I’m interested to see if Live Connected will be offering Optus 4G now. I just searched and they’ll apparently have news in 3 weeks.
4G still isn’t mature enough to justify the extra costs in my opinion. $729 for an LTE SGS3 from Kogan, compared to $479 for the 3G version. And then the quite comparable Nexus 4 is another $80 cheaper than that! And then there’s the cost of switching to a much more expensive carrier if Live Connected don’t end up offering 4G.
Damm…. this was one of the reasons I didn’t mind with the Nexus 4. Not sure if it will stop me getting one though. Faster downloads are always nice, but with the caps on data it’s not like I could do much extra with the speed.