Telstra has today announced the opening of a new 5G Innovation centre at the Southport Exchange on the Gold Coast where they say they will test ‘next generation mobile technologies in Australian conditions’.
The $60 million investment by Telstra in the innovation centre includes updates to the infrastructure in the Gold Coast area to support the new 5G technologies. Telstra will begin field trials of 5G technology in and around the Gold Coast in the coming months ahead of a planned meeting of the 3GPP, the international standard setting body, in September to consider the global standards for 5G.
Telstra Chief Operations Officer, Robyn Denholm, said Telstra had established the Gold Coast 5G Innovation Centre to ensure Australia is among the first countries in the world to gain access to 5G.
The Telstra 5G Innovation Centre is designed to enable collaboration among technology vendors, developers, start-ups and Telstra’s enterprise customers.
Optus last week announced their plans for beginning their 5G network rollout which will initially be used for fixed wireless terminals for data services. Optus is also waiting on the 3GPP to standardise the 5G protocols for voice and mobile services.
Ms Denholm said that
5G readiness is part of building Networks for the Future, a key pillar of the up to $3 billion in incremental investment we are making to transform the way we deliver services and bring new products to market. This investment will mean Telstra continues to deliver Australia’s largest and fastest* mobile network.
Telstra will be expecting test speeds of around 3 Gbps down and 300 Mbps up over mmWave spectrum. They will also be demonstrating a variety of use cases for the high-speed low-latency network including Australia’s first 5G field trial using a moving vehicle which will show how 5G can deliver an immersive view from the driver’s perspective via virtual reality headsets and support autonomous driving.
Other technology on show will include trials of Drones, and a robotic arm controlled over the network to show industrial applications.
