Stan Beer
Friday, 06 October 2006 11:08
Business IT -
Networking
Page 1 of 3
After months of sniping and complaining between the Government and the Telstra board over regulation, CEO Sol Trujillo finally delivered some good news to the carrier's long suffering shareholders with the launch of a new $1 billion 3G network today.
Even a burst sprinkling system that
interrupted the big presentation couldn't dampen Trujillo's enthusiasm
as he delivered Telstra's mobile broadband competition killer.
According to Trujillo, the NEXT G (3GSM 850 MHz) mobile network will
reach 98% of the population and far outstrips its 3G rivals in terms of
performance and coverage.
NEXT G is claimed to be the world's widest area national 3GSM network,
more than 100 times bigger geographically than any other 3GSM network
in Australia.
According to Telstra, NEXT G is up to 50 times faster than dial-up and
up to five times faster than other 3GSM networks. Telstra customers
will experience network download speeds averaging 550Kbps to 1.5Mbps,
and peak network speeds of up to 3.6Mbps, increasing up to 14.4Mbps
early next year.
"This is an exciting day for all Australians, no matter where they live
and work," Mr Trujillo said. "No one else, here or abroad, has built
and launched such a far-reaching, high speed, wireless broadband
network in less than a year. It is a versatile, high capacity network
with head room for higher speeds in the months and years ahead."
The President and Chief Executive Officer of global telco vendor
Ericsson, Mr Carl-Henric Svanberg, who co-launched the network with
Trujillo, said Ericsson expects Telstra's new mobile broadband network
to reach peak network speeds of up to 40Mbps by 2009, in line with the
development of global standardisation.