Josh Taylor over at ZDNet has picked up on the fact that Optus has been quietly upgrading its 2G network over the past few weeks, with certain base towers in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide supporting EDGE speeds. Other towers around the country will probably need a little bit of work before the update becomes network-wide.
While having a better 3G/HSPA network is probably of more interest to most Giz-reading Optus customers, increasing the 2G network is also important for the non smartphone wielding customers out there.
Both Telstra and Vodafone have been offering EDGE services for a while though…
[ZDNet]
Jason
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 4:36 PMThis is quite correct, Mt Waverley (near the trainstation) in Victoria has fairly poor coverage. This morning I noticed an “E” in place of the normal “0″.
Could this be part of some sort of LTE upgrade that includes edge as a bonus? I mean, I’m sure the bigger mobile carriers will still have plenty of old phones floating around the network.
Penmonicus
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:06 PMAhh, this explains, then! I was wondering what that “E” was when we were driving back from Port Adelaide.
Nick
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 4:41 PMReplace the word EDGE with LTE and you have a post I’m interested in.
Christopher Fox
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 4:46 PMSeems a bit late to the game if you ask me. You think they would be more focus on LTE, or increasing bandwidth/cell count on at the base stations.
Travis
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 4:51 PMI get it’s good to have a fall back network but I’ve never been on 2G/Edge with Telstra in 3years. NextG blankets everywhere 2G does and more. I thought Optus had some network idea to compete with NextG?
Jim
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:10 PMLooks like floptus are upgrading WA as well
Edge poped up on my phone the other day and i thought WTF!
BenDTU
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:19 PMWell, I guess Springwood in QLD has Edge now as well. I was wondering if I’d ever had that ‘E’ before.
Josh
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:24 PMWhats the point I ask?
Jonathon Grigg
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:25 PMOptus have supported edge I’m WA for more than a month now, noticed it on my Nexus S and contacted Optus social support on a Saturday, called me back within an hour with an answer from tech department.
Brilliant!
Nathan Adams
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:35 PMKelvin Grove (Brisbane inner suburbs) was showing EDGE last weekend. 1 bar of GPRS versus 1 bar of EDGE didn’t help in the slightest though… you can’t polish shit Optus.
Dom
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 5:48 PMI was wondering why that little E was popping up on my iPhone occasionally.
Chris Brown
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 6:15 PMPity I’m already halfway through porting to Telstra. Sorry Optus; too little, too late.
UnclePodge
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 6:19 PMEDGE appeared on Sydney Harbour while on the Manly Ferry a few days back. Still 3 big blackspots on the journey most days.
+1 for more towers
Scott
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 6:47 PMI’d suspect this has something to do with Optus transition of it’s metro towers from the 2100Mhz frequency to 900Mhz – in line with it’s rural footprint.
This update is not aimed at pleasing our current 2G users, many of whom can’t access data on their their phones anyway
Watch this space ;)
Christian
Sunday, June 5, 2011 at 10:51 PMThey aren’t doing anything like that. They don’t have enough 900MHz bandwidth to offer 2G and 3G.
bob
Friday, June 3, 2011 at 8:19 PMvodafails had edge for a while & ive switched 3g off on my iphone cus the areas im usually in edge is quite often faster than vodas “3g”
Feej
Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 1:24 PMI’d just like a reliable 3G service in Sydney metro. I understand that’s a lot to ask though…..
Scott
Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 5:22 PMIt will be interesting to see what the experience is like once the majority of Optus’ metro towers nationwide are converted to 900MHz
Nathan
Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 9:45 PMLiving in Cairns.
Lately while outside 3G I have been getting ‘E’ on my phone (galaxy s) and in network status it says edge
no one
Sunday, June 5, 2011 at 1:22 PMOptus Docklands Melbourne started edge 10 days ago. The Bberry battery lasts a day longer on Edge with the 3G radio turned off. Works well enough.
Mixa
Monday, June 6, 2011 at 12:51 PMYep…Spotted Edge here on the Far Nth Coast of NSW a few times in the last 2 weeks
Ben
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 11:27 PMWish they would enable 3g 900mhz in metro areas instead of this edge crap!