news The nation’s number two telco Optus announced this morning that it had switched on its first 4G sites in the Brisbane central business district and Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, adding to its existing coverage zones in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Newcastle.

“Optus has enabled 4G services at four sites in Surfers Paradise,” the company said in a statement, “in readiness for the growing number of holidaymakers travelling with new 4G tablet and handset devices … Optus will also switch on additional 4G sites at Surfers Paradise in December. In Brisbane, Optus will switch on five additional 4G sites from next week in selected areas of the CBD, ahead of a wider 4G rollout to the city in December and January 2013.”

Günther Ottendorfer, managing director of Networks at Optus said, “2012 has seen Optus undertake one of the largest ever network programmes for our customers, with the completion of large scale 3G network enhancements and the launch of 4G services in Newcastle, Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. With the success of these initiatives, we have managed to accelerate network rollout to deliver Optus 4G to select areas of the Gold Coast and Brisbane nearly six months ahead of schedule, with more sites to come online before the end of the year.”

“For customers using our 3G services, they will be pleased to know that Optus will continue to deliver stronger 3G performance, with further upgrades and new sites planned across south-east Queensland over the next 12 months. Today demonstrates Optus’ commitment to being a leader in 4G and we look forward to bringing expanded 4G services to our customers across our national mobile network.”

In early September, when Optus opened its 4G network in Sydney, Perth and Newcastle, the company had some 600 4G towers located around Australia. However, it has been rapidly expanding that network. In comparison, Telstra said in May that it had some 1,000 base stations covering two-thirds of Australia’s population, and was planning to activate a further 1,000 by mid-2013. Vodafone has yet to launch its 4G network in Australia.

Tests performed by Delimiter on Optus’ 4G network in Sydney have shown the the brand new next-generation currently performs on par with legacy ADSL2+ broadband in terms of raw download speeds and latency, and offers significantly better upload speeds.

The news comes as this morning, Telstra said it had connected over 820,000 4G devices to its own 4G infrastructure, including some 405,000 handsets. The remainder of the devices consist of USB or Wi-Fi mobile broadband units.

Image credit: Optus

Tweet

1. Dave Ingram
   Posted 31/10/2012 at 3:47 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Looks like Telstra might have to take down the “Only 4G in Brisbane” banners that they’ve hung up in their CBD stores.

   • Jim
     Posted 31/10/2012 at 4:05 pm | Permalink | Reply

     Not to mention the billboard on (I think) Upper Roma Street; and probably elsewhere as well!

2. Mark
   Posted 31/10/2012 at 4:19 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Well must be very short range, only 3G visible at QUT and we are pretty close to the Brisbane CBD
   Sad….

3. Tezz
   Posted 31/10/2012 at 5:04 pm | Permalink | Reply

   ehh, that dongle in the picture looks horrible. I picked up one of the hotspots last week, looks much nicer.

4. Derek
   Posted 31/10/2012 at 5:17 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Hi Mark, Optus will switch on five 4G sites from next week in selected areas of the [Brisbane] CBD, ahead of a wider 4G rollout to the city in December and January 2013.

   So of course there’s no 4G (yet) at QUT :)

5. Frank
   Posted 31/10/2012 at 6:12 pm | Permalink | Reply

   I like the quote “Today demonstrates Optus’ commitment to being a leader in 4G”. The spin people will put on things. Leader means out in front. Well Mr Optus, Telstra has been there for more than 12 months, so you are hardly a leader.

   • seven_tech
     Posted 31/10/2012 at 6:33 pm | Permalink | Reply

     @Frank

     Still leading Vodafone…..

     Hell, I think my own WiFi hotspot with VOIP is leading Vodafone in our area…..

6. giskard
   Posted 31/10/2012 at 7:11 pm | Permalink | Reply

   I’ve actually had LTE on Optus in the Surfers CBD for weeks. Not sure if it was in ‘pilot’ but had amazing speed since the iPhone 5 launch.

7. Ben Zemm
   Posted 01/11/2012 at 2:39 pm | Permalink | Reply

   They haven’t updated maps. Not even “planned coverage” is available.

8. pblakez
   Posted 01/11/2012 at 9:46 pm | Permalink | Reply

   be interested to know where they are going in on the gold coast as Ben Zemm said coverage maps are not up to date

9. Caitlin
   Posted 02/11/2012 at 3:10 pm | Permalink | Reply

   I just noticed LTE on my iphone 5 which is with Virgin (which runs on Optus network) in George St in Brisbane City, at the QUT end =D

   I had it when I was down in Newcastle and even 45kms out of Newcastle last month… I don’t understand why they decided on Newcastle before other major cities like Brisbane though…?

   • seven_tech
     Posted 02/11/2012 at 3:54 pm | Permalink | Reply

     @Caitlin

     I had it when I was down in Newcastle and even 45kms out of Newcastle last month… I don’t understand why they decided on Newcastle before other major cities like Brisbane though…?

     Optus first trialled their 4G in Newcastle. So the infrastructure was there first and so they switched it on commercially there first :)

• • Topic
  • Voices
  • Posts
  • Freshness
• • Malcolm Turnbull, Time Traveller

    Started by:  quink in: Everything else

  • 2
  • 4
  • 5 days, 10 hours ago

     Karl

  • Article on 'Ultraviolet'

    Started by:  ray73864 in: Everything else

  • 2
  • 2
  • 1 week, 1 day ago

     Karl

  • Surface sells out … of its tiny amount of stock?

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Gadgets

  • 4
  • 4
  • 1 week, 2 days ago

     douglasrose

  • Coalition fraudband plan summary…

    Started by:  Hubert Cumberdale in: National Broadband Network

  • 4
  • 4
  • 2 weeks ago

     JamesH1

  • NBN Is A Question Of Reliability

    Started by:  JamesH1 in: National Broadband Network

  • 1
  • 1
  • 2 weeks ago

     JamesH1

  • Renai asked:

    Started by:  Tinman_au in: National Broadband Network

  • 1
  • 1
  • 2 weeks ago

     Tinman_au

  • What Happened to Whirlpool posts

    Started by:  MikeK101 in: Everything else

  • 2
  • 2
  • 3 weeks, 6 days ago

     Bob.H

  • Conroy/Turnbull NBN Debate Next Week

    Started by:  zephram in: National Broadband Network

  • 1
  • 1
  • 4 weeks ago

     zephram

  • Blocked from posting? Let me know

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Everything else

  • 2
  • 2
  • 1 month ago

     Abel Adamski

  • Falsehoods of the day

    Started by:  Karl in: National Broadband Network

  • 4
  • 5
  • 1 month, 1 week ago

     Anonymous

  • Is IBM selling its Network Services Division to Telstra?

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Everything else

  • 1
  • 1
  • 1 month, 2 weeks ago

     Renai LeMay

  • 10 Terabit NBN plan? Yes please :)

    Started by:  daniel996 in: National Broadband Network

  • 2
  • 2
  • 1 month, 2 weeks ago

     Karl

  • Renai (or anyone else?): List of working tags?

    Started by:  Tinman_au in: Everything else

  • 3
  • 6
  • 2 months ago

     midspace

  • Receiving spam from "OEMSoftware Newsletter"?

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Everything else

  • 4
  • 4
  • 2 months ago

     midspace

  • A brief update on banned users

    Started by:  Renai LeMay in: Everything else

  • 6
  • 9
  • 2 months ago

     Autocrat

•