Telstra beating its 5G rollout targets

Telstra says it is ahead of its schedule to roll out 5G and has ­established the first test sites of 5G millimetre wave technology.

The 5G rollout has reached 700 suburbs to date.

Telstra says it is ahead of its schedule to roll out 5G and has ­established the first test sites of 5G millimetre wave technology.

The coronavirus pandemic has not slowed Telstra’s general rollout of 5G.

Telstra network engineering executive Channa Seneviratne said the company had rolled out 5G in areas of 47 cities and regional centres, and was ahead of the goal announced last year of 35 cities by June 30.

All states and territories had some 5G coverage except for the Northern Territory. Most of the 47 regions are in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, with some coverage in Perth and Busselton in Western Australia, Adelaide and Mount Gambier in South Australia, Hobart and Launceston in Tasmania, and Canberra.

Mr Seneviratne said 700 suburbs had 50 per cent or more 5G coverage, and more than eight million people lived, worked or passed through Telstra’s 5G ­network.

The telco had increased 5G coverage in suburban areas as more people worked from home.

“We’ve pushed ahead with our plans, regardless of any impediments with COVID-19 or otherwise,” Mr Seneviratne said.

“One of the things that we looked at as a company, and I’m sure others have as well, is what’s going to be the new normal. We’ve discovered that we can work virtually from home.

“If we have the right tools, it works brilliantly.”

Telstra also announced progress in its rollout of millimetre wave or mmWave, a form of 5G that has a higher frequency, handles more traffic and is faster, but works over a shorter range. It’s suited to stadiums, transport hubs, railway stations, airports, shopping centres and CBDs where regular cellular data coverage can be overwhelmed by high demand of traffic.

Mr Seneviratne said Telstra had established three mmWave test sites. Two of the 5G innovation centres were on the Gold Coast and one was outside Telstra’s test lab at Parramatta, in western Sydney. He said Telstra would open other mmWave test centres including in Melbourne once it obtained more licences.

He said enterprises needing higher capacity might opt for mmWave indoors. “It’s got so much more carrying capacity because we’ve got so much more spectrum available that can carry all of this data,” he said.

The transfer between different forms of mmWave would be seamless. Users would be unaware of the type of 5G they were using as long as their devices supported mmWave. Mr Seneviratne said no phones in the Australian market supported mmWave for now.

“We’ll set the network up so that it’s completely seamless. If you’re using mid band and 4G and then you move into an area where there’s millimetre waves, we’ll set up the networks to take advantage of the additional capacity and shift you onto it automatically,” he said.

mmWave can also be used to create stand-alone networks in, say, factories that want to automate their operations with wireless communications.

Telstra also announced a 5G mobile broadband device that supports mmWave: the Telstra 5G Wi-Fi Pro, which is available from Tuesday. The cost is $599 or $24.95 a month over 24 months.

However, people will not be able to use its mmWave capacity without being near a test site.

mmWave won’t be more generally available until after the government’s mmWave auction, which was not due until early 2021 even before the pandemic.