The Telstra 4G network is about to get a massive shot in the arm, with the telco’s CEO promising another half a billion dollars worth of investment over the next two years.
Telstra CEO Andy Penn gave a speech yesterday that saw him promise to invest 15 per cent of total sales into a variety of investments, including the 4G network over the next two years. By June 2017 when the work is complete, Telstra will cover 99 per cent of the population (as opposed to the current 90 per cent 4G population coverage), or over 2.5 million square kilometres of our great country. To put that in perspective, the area of the whole country is 7.62 million square kilometres.
That means 750 new base stations are being built bringing the total number of tower sites to over 9000 (!!!). Low signal areas will get a boost, too, with 750 so-called small cells being developed to fill in patchy areas.
The telco is rapidly developing Voice Over LTE towers, as well as LTE Advanced (LTE-A) cells for fast data speeds — we’re talking over 600Mbps according to CEO Penn — and LTE Broadcast cells for delivering video over wireless.
Get cracking, Telstra! [Exchange]