‘Fastest mobile broadband modem on the planet’: Telstra’s new claim

Trials of the 21Mbps mobile broadband modem will begin in December, with a full commercial launch to follow early next year.

The modems are “almost three times faster than the fastest devices currently available – which will push the speed barrier to levels not seen anywhere else on earth,” said Mike Wright, executive director Wireless Engineering and Operations, speaking at the company’s annual Investor Day briefing.

“This is truly game-changing,” Wright said. “The new technology will unlock opportunities for many of our customers by bridging the gap between wired and wireless broadband connectivity.

Telstra hosted its first public enhanced HSPA (eHSPA) data session, showcasing the high network speeds and the modem’s capabilities.

The eHSPA upgrade would ensure that Telstra’s Next G network remained the most advanced national mobile network on the planet, said Wright.

“Apart from speeding up our already super-fast network, eHSPA gives us improved network efficiency to build capacity and maintain the quality of our service so we can continue to welcome customers to the Next G network,” Wright said.

“Peak network downlink speeds on the Next G network will have evolved from 3.6Mbps to 21Mbps in just over two years, providing extra speed, flexibility and productivity in the network footprint covering more than two million square kilometres and 99 per cent of the Australian populations.”

But Telstra warned that 21Mbps speeds represented ‘peak network downlink speeds’, and that actual customer download speeds would be less due to network configuration, congestion, distance from the cell, local conditions, hardware, software and other factors.