blog We want to do a more comprehensive examination of this situation at a later date, but for now we want to just briefly highlight the fact that ailing mobile telco Vodafone has finally kicked off trials of its new 4G network and is achieving top-range speeds of up to 67Mbps and upload speeds of up to 30Mbps. The telco has posted a blog entry online with all the details and we’re hoping to get access to the infrastructure ourselves soon. The telco writes:

“We conducted our initial calls at our 4G base station in Alexandria and on the streets of Sydney’s Eastern suburbs using category 3 devices. The calls for voice, mms and sms went off without a hitch. For our speed tests, we used speedtest.net app, where we recorded super fast download test speeds ranging between 60Mbps to 67Mbps and upload test in the 25-30Mbps range.”

Given that Telstra already has some 1.5 million customers on its 4G network and even Optus has had its 4G network operational in some areas for almost a year now, to say that we’re quite skeptical about Vodafone’s chances of success in the emerging 4G market is a collossal understatement. However, there may be some differences between the three networks in practice which may actually give Vodafone an advantage in some ways. The big V is strongly pitching its argument that it has more wireless spectrum available for its 4G network than either Telstra or Optus. See this comparison table the telco has published for more details. We’re not quite sure how this difference will end up panning out in practice, but it will sure be interesting to find out.

Image credit: Vodafone

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1. AJ
   Posted 20/02/2013 at 1:00 pm | Permalink | Reply

   If they have 20MHz of spectrum in all states and deploy 4G they could do really well assuming those numbers are accurate the only problem would be coverage.

   • Master T
     Posted 20/02/2013 at 1:35 pm | Permalink | Reply

     Full transmission equipment additions (as in new sites and new locations) arent slated to be completed until early 2014. Keep in mind that date reflects ALL sites and locations country wide, not just metro. Those equipment additions alone are a big boon to the coverage stakes.

     If they gave you that media release Renai, did they by chance give you the technical network release memo that goes along with it? The Network Release that goes along with that information shows that the network is expecting to have denser coverage patterns (Vodafone does infact have more physical ‘locations’ just not more equipment on those locations ‘referred to as sites – plus its definition’ than Optus) than Optus and gives you technical info, such as the expected and current downlink / uplink speeds – congestion and so forth.

2. Paul Jones
   Posted 20/02/2013 at 1:31 pm | Permalink | Reply

   20MHz of spectrum could just result in half the number of base stations (give or take).

3. NightKhaos
   Posted 20/02/2013 at 1:55 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Little behind the eight ball, but good news regardless.

   • PointZeroOne
     Posted 20/02/2013 at 2:13 pm | Permalink | Reply

     How so? We are talking about Vodafone here.

4. midspace
   Posted 20/02/2013 at 2:19 pm | Permalink | Reply

   “voice, mms and sms went off without a hitch”

   So, was voice actually getting carried on the 4G? Or was it getting dumped onto the 3G?

   • Toby
     Posted 21/02/2013 at 11:13 am | Permalink | Reply

     All the voice calls are circuit switched (i.e. 3G) on all carriers in Australia and will remain so for the near future.

5. Michael
   Posted 20/02/2013 at 6:05 pm | Permalink | Reply

   20mhz is required for cat4 yeah? This would let voda leapfrog telstra and optus. They also havnt exactly overinvested in 3g so volte and co makes sense

6. martin
   Posted 21/02/2013 at 12:01 am | Permalink | Reply

   I am really interested in this as I know VHA have recently grown backhaul for thier new network with super massive capacity. Poised and ready.

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