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Telstra Promises 42Mbps Wireless By 2009 |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 12 February 2008 |
Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo has outlined a 3G speed roadmap at the GSMA
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that will see the company delivering
data rates of 42Mbps by the end of next year. That's after reaching
speeds that outstrip most wireline ADSL services this year.
"We have an evolution roadmap with Ericsson which will
deliver customers speeds of 21 Mbps in 2008 across our national NextG
network a world first and 42 Mbps in 2009 using HSPA+ technology," Trujillo said.
The company has invested A$1.1 billion in the network which provides coverage over more than 2
million square kilometres and reaches an estimated 99 per cent
of the Australian population.
It
has successfully migrated 38 per cent of its mobile subscribers to
3G as at the end of January 2008 as it accelerated usage ahead of its
planned shut down of the CDMA network it replaces. Trujillo says the
migration effort grew 11 percentage
points in the past four months and had taken a little over a year to
achieve. Telstra expects
it to hit between 60 and 70 per cent by 2010. Among post-paid consumer
(non-business) subscribers, the proportion on 3G is already 60 per cent.
This was translating into more revenue to the company said Trujillo who
claims the ARPU differential between 3G subscribers and 2G subscribers
is more than A$20 since the network launch. The combined growth in
subscriber ratio and strong ARPU has meant that in the
December 2007 quarter, Telstra's 3G revenues exceeded 2G revenues for
the first time.
"Just like with the introduction of fixed line ADSL in the mid
1990s, people started using the Internet because it was always on,' we
believed the investment in high-speed wireless broadband would provide
a customer experience that was also life changing," he said.
"That has proved to be the case as Australians have embraced real
time connections for data services, entertainment such as Mobile TV and
music, information, transactions and other mobile services - for
example, penetration of video calling on Next G is four times more
than on our 2100 3G network."
Data accounted for 30 per cent of Telstra's mobile services revenue
in the six months to December 2007 and it looks like this may continue
to grow as it was as high as 31.5 per cent in the
month of December. In fact, Telstra's non-SMS data revenues are higher
than the SMS revenues as it continues to achieve high levels of
acceptance growing 93.5 per cent in the
September 2007 quarter.
Mobile TV is one of the new revenue streams. At December 31, 2007,
more than 70,000 3G customers were monthly subscribers to Telstra's
Mobile FOXTEL service with each subscriber watching about 54 minutes a
month and spending almost A$11 a month.
He also announced that Telstra will unveil a prototype online music concept in Barcelona
this week. Dubbed netTunity, the application eliminates the
traditional link between a mobile music device and a computer,
streaming audio directly from the network.
"We made a billion dollar bet with the confidence
of a poker player holding three aces - market based management to know
what our customers want, great technology with a roadmap to the future
and high-performing partners. By the mix of deploying HSPA, faster
speeds, and targeted applications, we have changed the working habits
and lifestyles of Australians and grown revenues, subscribers and ARPU," Trujillo said.
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