Telstra's 42Mbps Next G broadband goes live

Stuart Corner
Monday, 30 August 2010 18:09

Business IT - Networking

Telstra has become the first telco in the world to launch dual carrier HSPA+ services offering downstream speeds up to a theoretical maximum of 42Mbps.

The service is presently available in all capital city CBDs [to within 5km of the CBD] and selected metropolitan areas, associated airports and in more than 100 regional locations. (Telstra's web page devoted to the new service has a link to a list of all areas where the service is available, but the link was not working at the time of writing.)

Telstra is quoting "typical" downstream bandwidths in the range 1.Mbps to 20Mbps. A Telstra video showed the modem delivering around 10Mbps in a number of locations in the Melbourne CBD and iTWire was able to obtain 10Mbps from our office in the inner Sydney suburb of Enmore.

(This was achieved using speedtest.net and a server in Canberra operated by AussieHQ Interestingly the other two available nearby servers, operated by Optus in Melbourne and Sydney, delivered less than half this speed).

The service is being offered at the same price as current Next G broadband services (the modem is available at $0 on a $69 per month 6GB contract, or can be bought for $299). However because of a shortage of supply of the modems, they are being offered initially only to Telstra Enterprise And Government and Telstra Business customers with account managers.

Mike Wright, Telstra's executive director of networks and access technologies, said Telstra had at present only 2000 of the modems, dubbed the Telstra Ultimate USB Modem, but was expecting more shortly. "There is another shipment coming in late September and from then and after that we will have the supply to meet demand forecasts."

He added that, like previous HSPA services launched on Next G, the new service and delivery of the new modem had been made possible only through close co-operation between Telstra, network supplier Ericsson, chipmaker Qualcomm and modem manufacturer, Sierra Wireless.

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