Optus reveals pricing, availability of 5G home broadband

Optus has taken the wraps off its 5G fixed wireless broadband service launching this year, guaranteeing at least 50Mbps download speeds across an initial 60 suburbs.

The telco announced this morning that it plans to rollout 5G to 1200 sites by March 2020, with initial services set to go live in the second quarter of 2019.

Optus has already gone live with two 5G sites in Canberra and one in Sydney, and this morning revealed the next 48 sites to get access to the telco's 5G services which will cover 60 suburbs. The full list suburbs is listed at the bottom of this article.

“We will have more 5G sites going live across Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth and Sydney over the coming months giving a select group of customers the chance to get their hands on our 5G Home Broadband devices in areas of selected suburbs," Optus CEO Allen Lew said.

"We will open the service up to more customers and more locations as more devices are released and our 5G cells continue to roll-out.”

There was no word on when customers in Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory would gain access to Optus' 5G network, though the telco said it would continue adding suburbs to the list of available sites.

There was also no mention of whether Optus' channel partners would be able to resell 5G services.

The telco also announced pricing for its 5G fixed wireless product. Optus 5G Home Broadband will cost $70 per month and will offer customer's unlimited data with a "50Mbps satisfaction guarantee", which means customers can cancel their contract if download speeds can't reach that benchmark.

It should be noted that 5G services require compatible devices to access which are currently unavailable to consumers, though Optus said it will sell an off-the-shelf product in the coming months.

Lew said the company is also working with smartphone vendors for access to 5G devices and will announce further details later on.

Optus has also launched an expression of interest campaign that allows customers to register their interest in their suburbs being among the first to receive 5G access.

Nokia is supplying 5G radio access network and Fastmile customer premise equipment for the build. The rollout will include upgrading existing sites and adding new mobile sites while "densifying the network with small cell solutions" to increase capacity in inner-city locations.

“We currently have three live in-network 5G cells, but we will be turbo-charging our roll-out over the next 12 months to deliver 5G cells on the Optus Mobile Network across Australia with the goal of putting this exciting technology into the hands of our customers as soon as possible,” Lew said.

“We will continue to adopt a multi-vendor approach to our network technology infrastructure that will drive innovation and competition, which is critical to Optus’ DNA.”

The first suburbs to gain access to Optus' 5G network: