Vodafone 3G now reaches 94 percent of Australians

Stuart Corner
Monday, 31 August 2009 06:46

IT Industry - Strategy

Vodafone has completed the planned upgrade to its network, expanding 3G coverage to 94 percent of the population from 80 percent and adding 2G EDGE services and upgrading 2G coverage in the extended 3G coverage area.

All the new 3G coverage is at 900MHz. Vodafone in May announced completion of the upgrade from 63 percent 3G coverage to 80 percent using the 2100MHz band.

It had originally planned to turn on both upgrades simultaneously late in 2008 but decided to split them and delay them in order to ensure there would be minimal disruption to services, especially in the run up to the Christmas period, CTO Andy Reeves, told iTWire

The upgraded coverage is available to all users on the Vodafone network whether direct customers of Vodafone or an MVNO. However to avail themselves of 3G services in the extended coverage area they wil need a 3G phone operating at 900Mz. Vodafone presently has 18 models available and Reeves said that the Vodafone range had included a number of 900MHz phones for some time.

The network presently provides HSPA at a theoretical maximum downstream bandwidth of 14.4Mbps and Reeves said there were no plans at present to upgrade to higher rates. However he said that Vodafone used the name network equipment from Ericsson as Telstra so the upgrades that Telstra has installed (21Mbps and plans announced to go to 42Mbps) would be available to Vodafone. Vodafone is quoting typical bandwidths of 300kbps to 3.0Mbps.
Reeves said that most HSPA modems previously sold by Vodafone would be able to exploit the maximum available bandwidth.

The upgraded network will not be available to customers of 3, Vodafone's partner in the new joint venture, VHA. Reeves said two tenders had been issued for consolidation of their networks (Vodafone has a network sharing arrangement with Optus and 3 with Telstra) but he was unable to say when tenders were likely to be awarded or when 3 customers would gain access to the expanded Vodafone network.