Mobile internet has now surpassed the speed of the National Broadband Network (NBN) with Telstra’s new mobile network. Telstra today launched the world’s first Gigabit LTE network, which is capable of internet speeds ten times faster than those of the NBN. At a media demonstration in Sydney, a computer connected to the Gigabit LTE network reached a peak speed of 886Mbps, which is ten times quicker than a home user can reach on the NBN.
This is @Telstra‘s new #gigabitlte in action. Woosh! pic.twitter.com/h41I6mgRFZ
— Jonathan Bray (@jon1bray) January 30, 2017
There are currently 15 telecommunications companies in 11 countries trialling, or planning to trial Gigabit LTE, however Telstra is reportedly the first company to debut the technology.
Ericsson ANZ chief executive Emilio Romeo said that the technology had been created to meet exponential data consumption growth. He predicted that smartphone data usage would climb to 11GB a month by 2022, in comparison to 1.9GB used by smartphones currently.
“Average time watching video on a smartphone has more than doubled since 2011,” Romeo said. “75% of mobile data traffic will be from streaming video by 2022.”
Telstra collaborated with Ericsson, Qualcomm and Netgear for the groundbreaking mobile network. Netgear also launched the world’s first Gigabit LTE device, the Nighthawk M1 mobile router. The Netgear Nighthawk M1 mobile router can accommodate speeds of up to 1Gbps download and 150Mbps upload, as well as being able to handle 20 separate devices connected to its Wi-Fi network. The router will be available from $360 upfront from next month. There has been no announcement from Telstra regarding updated mobile plans with higher data allowances, however it seems unlikely that such speed will be cheap.
Group Managing Director of Networks at Telstra, Mike Wright, said that the Gigabit LTE capability will facilitate the development of the much-anticipated 5G network.
“Gigabit LTE is also an important step on our journey to 5G and demonstrates Telstra’s commitment to delivering Australians a world class network now and into the future,” he said.
Have the need for speed? The #GigabitLTE network is the answer.
Today we previewed the future of mobile connectivity https://t.co/8YSXqA9Zdu pic.twitter.com/8tWSYtOpnR— Telstra (@Telstra) January 31, 2017
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