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Optus Goes Ahead With Rural 3G |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 30 January 2007 |
Optus has announced it plans to
take the Telstra Next G network head on from early next year once it
has rolled out its own 3G network which, it says, will reach 98 per
cent of the Australian population.
Although metropolitan 3G
partner Vodafone will not take part in the new network build, Optus has
confirmed it will continue to co-own the existing 2100MHz 3G network in
metro Australian that it runs in a joint venture with Vodafone.
Optus has made it clear that the new "will be built and owned by Optus exclusively", but that it expects to sell capacity on the
network to mobile resellers as it already does with junior telcos such as People Telecom .
The
new third generation wireless network will complement The co-owned
metropolitan network rather than replace it and Optus intends to
continue offering services using the Vodafone/Optus infrastructure in
the cities, but by extending the network to a nationwide footprint
reaching 96 per cent of the population Optus is certainly taking "a
bold step to bring competitive" 3G communications the regional
Australians as Paul O'Sullivan, Optus Chief Executive said.
"The incumbent though that it could lock up regional Australia under a
3G monopoly . But Optus continues to build its business on bringing
competition and improved products and services to customers," said
O'Sullivan.
"Today, competition in rural and regional Australia is weak, with the
incumbent having substantial excess market share. With the investment
Optus is announcing today we are well positioned to grow share in
non-metropolitan Australian," he said.
The new network will replicate
the coverage of Optus' existing national 2G mobile network which covers
over 650,000 square kilometers of the Australian landmass. That is up from the existing 3G network which covers only 7,500 square kilometers today.
It will operate in the 2100MHz frequency range, but Optus is exploring
the possibility of using the 900MHz frequency range to address smaller
regional centres as well as rural and remote locations.
The lower frequency, as used by Telstra, allows for far greater reach
significantly reducing network build costs. OPtus says it has been
testing 3G at 900MHz for some months as it offers "greater range,
giving better quality coverage
across sparsely populated rural and remote areas".
O'Sullivan said that Optus would reach a final decision on frequency
choice for the second phase of the rollout later in 2007, but that the
difference in costs is significant.
"The cost of the network rollout
is estimated at up to A$800 million if it is built entirely at 2100MHz,
and round A$500 million if 900MHz proved feasible," explained O'Sullivan. Using the lower frequency will mean the difference between installing 2000 rather than 2500 base stations to achieve the same coverage.
The new network will be funded
out of Optus' normal annual CAPEX program over the three year build period, he said.
In
addition, the new 3G network is designed to allow a natural upgrade
paththrough the installation of additional software to enable High
Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). Once installed, this will allow
network peak broadband speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps initially, with the
potential to rise up to 14.4 Mbps.
O'Sullivan said construction will begin as soon as possible with
the first phase addressing large regional centres including Newcastle,
Bendigo, Ballarat and Wollongong.
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