The nation’s number two telco Optus today defended the performance of its 3G mobile network and said it was working to improve customers’ experience on it.

The telco has come under fire over the past year over drop-outs, slow data access and at-times patchy coverage on the network. Some customers have even setup the #badoptus hashtag on Twitter to document the questions.

But asked about the issue today at an event to discuss a trial of its planned Long-Term Evolution (LTE) upgrade, Optus executives were upbeat about the issue (see video above).

“We’ve made a significant amount of investment over the past few years, particularly in response to … very aggressive rising demand,” said Andrew Smith, Optus’ Mobile Network director. “We believe through our own measures — and we’ve been vindicated through external measures as well — that we’ve made some substantial improvements in the quality.”

Smith said Optus was “continually improving” the network — whether it be when Optus invested in new infrastucture, or whether it was optimising or tweaking it.

Henry Calvert — Optus director of Mobile Access and Broadband Products — said customers could also look at some of the independent reports in the market and reviews by test labs to verify the company’s claims. “You can see that Optus has certainly gained momentum in improving its network, and we’ll continue to do that,” he said.

In a report published in early June, research house IDC claimed Optus’ 3G mobile broadband offering was only 4 percent behind Telstra’s Next G network across a range of criteria — despite acknowledging that Telstra’s network was on average 60 percent faster.

“Optus’ performance soared in 2009, scoring similarly to Telstra, although slightly more network fallback was experienced. However, performance was fairly consistent and well above both of VHA’s networks,” said IDC telecommunications market analyst Mark Novosel in a statement at the time.

But a number of readers immediately refuted the report’s findings in online comments.

Video credit: Jenna Pitcher

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2. NBN: Will Optus shut down its HFC network?
3. Is Optus 3G almost as good as Telstra?
4. Fight! Next G vs ‘The Open Network’
5. Optus demos Nokia Siemens Networks LTE

1. Michael H
   Posted 15/07/2010 at 3:20 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Too little, too late for Optus. Nothing more really needs to be said.

2. None
   Posted 15/07/2010 at 3:35 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Shiny new base stations, but what about backhaul Optus?

   Your backhaul is congested and you know it.

3. Matt
   Posted 16/07/2010 at 2:10 am | Permalink | Reply

   Optus having any kind of decent service would be innovative.