Telstra launches world's first Gigabit LTE device

SYDNEY: Telstra, Ericsson, Qualcomm and NETGEAR on Tuesday announced the world’s first commercial Gigabit LTE network and device at the “Gigabit LTE Experience” event in Sydney.

The Gigabit LTE NETGEAR device, Nighthawk M1, will first be made available to consumers in Australia in late February 2017.

The newly-launched Gigabit LTE service will deliver extremely fast access to consumers’ favorite content, and even faster access to enterprise applications and business-critical data.

Gigabit performance will improve access to high-quality video streaming, and facilitate emerging mobile virtual reality applications and experiences, and is a key step towards 5G.

In addition to Gigabit LTE speeds on the downlink, Telstra’s new network capability also delivers up to double the previous uplink speeds, which means uploading content to social media, the cloud or business applications will be much faster.

Telstra was the first globally to launch 600Mbps download speeds in Sept 2015, and now further extends the global network leadership with Gigabit LTE.

These new features and capabilities are all important steps as Telstra evolves its network towards 5G. Gigabit LTE is not only about high peak speeds but also delivers more network capacity which benefits all users.

A Gigabit LTE mobile device gets the job done faster with the ability to allow more network resources to be available for other users. This allows 4-way receive diversity with capability to support improved data throughout all areas of the LTE network including both the Gigabit enabled areas and other remaining LTE network areas.

Mike Wright, Group Managing Director, Networks, Telstra says “As the roll out of Gigabit LTE continues, our customers with a Gigabit capable device can enjoy a faster mobile experience for both downloads and uploads.”

“As our customers continue to use increasing amounts of data for entertainment and business use, Telstra’s continuous innovation ensures our network is ready to deliver the country’s best mobile experience. “

He said that Gigabit LTE is also an important step on our journey to 5G and demonstrates Telstra’s commitment to delivering a world class network now and into the future.

“We are well placed to evolve our 4G network and are putting the building blocks in place for Australia to be ready for 5G – this will deliver more bandwidth and lower latencies which are critical for emerging applications such as downloading 4K video, IoT, autonomous vehicles, augmented reality and shared virtual reality,” said Wright.

Per Narvinger, Vice President Network Systems, Ericsson says “Once again we are pleased to partner with Telstra to deliver the world’s first commercial Gigabit LTE network which we see as an important step as Telstra continues toward 5G.”

“Gigabit LTE provides end users with even faster mobile broadband speeds, further improving their mobile experience while supporting new emerging bandwidth intensive applications,” he said.

Mike Finley, senior vice president, president Qualcomm North America, Qualcomm says “The Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE modem is the first commercial modem in the world to make these game-changing speeds and user experiences possible.”

Andrew Green, Vice President of Mobile Network Products, NETGEAR, says “The new Nighthawk M1 takes advantage of the latest of LTE and Wi-Fi technologies on the Telstra 4GX network enabling subscribers to enjoy the benefits of a secure network with the fastest download speeds.”

Ericsson is present today in all high-traffic LTE markets including US, Japan, and South Korea, and is ranked first for handling the most global LTE traffic. In addition, forty percent of the world’s total mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks.