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One question from a reader regarding the new 21Mbps network was: “Please find out for us if the latency of the NextG connection will drop with this new upgrade?”
The answer to this question was: “There’s a significant decrease in latency, which is also thanks to the backhaul upgrade”, but that as with all things wireless, it did depend on where you actually were when connecting.
I did ask if there were figures showing the decrease in latency between the previous 7.2Mbps/14.4Mbps network compared with the new 21Mbps network, but was told that no, these figures weren’t published or publicly available.
Clearly, Telstra must know or could easily find out, but they’re not telling, for whatever reason, although any decrease in latency is a good thing!
One journalist asked whether the existing backhaul upgrades (to support 21Mbps) would be enough to support the 42Mbps upgrade later this year, with the answer being that:
“We continually upgrade our fixed network, upgrade and invest in our backhaul capability so we’re not caught by surprise. It takes a lot of investment and time, we need to make sure we have enough capacity to take care of future needs.”
The 21Mbps USB modem will retail for a whopping AUD $499 outright, and will initially be only available to business customers, although those wishing to go on a monthly plan can get it for AUD $299 instead.
Consumers will be offered a BigPond version in the not too distant future.
As for my “Now we are talking” website video appearance, you can see it on this page .
The video shows Duncan Armstrong and two Telstra executives (Deena Shiff and Jenny Young) talking about the benefits of the increased speeds the 21Mbps network upgrade delivered.
I made special note to say that a big question revolved around pricing of the service, especially in this “deflationary world” that we live in, and it’s nice to see that my statement on this didn’t get edited out of the video, although it’s unlikely Telstra will be dropping their prices anytime soon just because I’ve said something about it.
Indeed, it’s something that Optus made sure to let the media know about in the wake of the 21Mbps announcement – details of that are on page 3, along with my commentary on what they’ve claimed. Please read on!
