Australia. Guide to Australia

The largest Australian mobile operator Telstra announced the commercial launch of its LTE 4G network. 4GV LTE network is available in the large cities,  – Sydney, Newcastle, Канберра, Melbourne and about two dozen Australian cities, but the forecast for Telstra, year-end coverage will be increased by another 50 populated areas of the country.

The launch of 4G occurred less than a month after that, how Telstra released USB modems with 4G support. Telstra's new network is powered by Ericsson equipment and now allows simultaneous 2G/3G/4G services.

The speed of data download in the operator's 4G network reaches 70 Mbit/s: That will do, to download videos in high definition resolution in just one minute. However, Telstra's director of wireless services, Anthony Gunan, (Anthony Goonan), that this particular figure will not be promoted, in order not to create unrealistic expectations among subscribers. According to him, the average real data transfer rate in the network reaches 2-40 Mbps for download and 1-10 Mbit/s for unloading.

At the first stage, LTE services from Telstra will be available only through USB modems, and they are provided to users free of charge together with 24-month contracts. And the lowest tariff plan offers 4GB of traffic for $48,7 per month. For those subscribers, who do not want to subscribe to the service immediately for two years, you will be charged for the product is of the order $290.

General Director of Telstra David Todd (David Thodey) said, that the company is aware of the huge demand from users connected to 4G smartphones and tablets, and so the operator is in talks with leading handset manufacturers. So in the Telstra first smartphones can earn in the first half 2012 year.

Telstra is not the only player, который уже сообщил о своих планах по запуску сети четвертого поколения в Австралии. The company recently announced its intention to Optus to launch LTE network, its launch is scheduled for next April, network will cover the north-east. Also, Vodafone Hutchison previously reported the launch of 4G, however, without mentioning any specific dates.