Optus ramps up 4G network
Optus' rollout of its 4G network is expected to reach 70 per cent of Australia's metropolitan population by the middle of 2014.
The nation's second largest telco has expanded its 4G network to include Canberra, with mobile broadband dongles and wifi modems expected to be available from June.
Optus vice president of mobile radio engineering Andrew Smith said the telco has about 700,000 4G handsets in the market since it launched in the third quarter of 2012.
Mr Smith said 4G users usually experienced a "three- to five-fold type average improvement in speed" compared with the 3G network, which Optus was also continuing to improve.
The telco hoped to complete upgrades to its 3G network in Adelaide, Canberra, the NSW central coast and Wollongong by the end of 2013.
"The bulk of customers still sit on 3G so we are absolutely still very much focused on making sure they get continued improvements in performance," Mr Smith said on Monday.
"But we are paving the way to make sure that those who want to move to 4G get a great experience and get great coverage."
The new 4G offering from Optus in Canberra uses a new type of 4G technology known as time-division long-term evolution (TD-LTE), which allows downloads and uploads to travel on the same frequency but at different times.
Outside Canberra, Optus' 4G network run frequency-division long-term evolution (FD-LTE), where uploads and downloads are separated into different frequency channels.
Optus managing director of networks Gunther Ottendorfer said the new TD-LTE technology was more flexible and better able to cater for large downloads such as watching streaming video.
TD-LTE would be expanded to other parts of Australia in the period ahead, Optus said.
While only mobile broadband dongles would be made available in June, Mr Smith said mobile handsets that were TD-LTE capable were already available in Japan and were expected to come to Australia shortly.
"While we are not announcing a TD capable handset we are encouraged by the development of the overall ecosystem," Mr Smith said.
Optus' parent company Singapore Telecommunications was up 1.5 cents at $3.295 in local trading.
The company is listed in both Australia and Singapore.
