Telstra's been talking up their NextG network for some time as the world's fastest, and for good reason. At 14.4Mbps, it currently is the world's fastest, although there aren't a lot of devices on the market that take advantage of that speed (most HSDPA phones and modems run at 7.2Mbps).

But, at the company's annual Investor Day briefing today, they unveiled a new modem produced in conjunction with Qualcomm, Ericsson and Sierra Wireless, to blow the current network's 14.4Mbps speeds out of the water. The new modem will be capable of 21Mbps, which is the speed Telstra will be taking its NextG network to early next year, with trials starting next month.

The technology, called enhanced HSPA (or eHSPA), will not only offer much faster speeds than are currently available, but will also improve network efficiency and offer increased capacity for all the consumers that will flock trickle over to NextG.

Of course, knowing Telstra, when they do launch this super-fast modem, they'll also price it beyond the reach of us mere mortals. But still, for wireless internet that covers most of Australia and offers near ADSL2+ speeds, you'd expect to pay a premium of some kind, wouldn't you?

[Telstra]

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Yesterday, Telstra celebrated the second birthday of its NextG network by announcing that they are on track to deliver even faster speeds on the network. The Enhanced HSPA (eHSPA) network is theoretically capable of 21Mbps download speeds - which is significantly faster than any of the country's other HSPA networks (which typically max out at about 7Mbps theoretically).

When the Big T launches their eHSPA network (which it claims will happen by the end of the year), it will make them the first carrier to offer the 21Mbps speeds.

Of course, the only problem with this comes not from Telstra, but from the lack of compliant hardware on the consumer side. After all, NextG is already capable of speeds around 14.4Mbps, but there isn't a whole lot of handsets (or other devices) that take advantage of the speeds. It's why those claims of a 42Mbps iPhone were such crap - the chip inside the iPhone was only capable of 7.2Mbps.

Still, the hardware will come eventually, and although Telstra is certain to charge obscene amounts of cash for these types of speeds, it's still impressive that you'll be able to get lightning fast wireless connectivity all around Australia.

[Telstra]