Telstra to offer Gigabit LTE with release of new NETGEAR mobile router
Telstra, Ericsson, Qualcomm and NETGEAR have jointly unveiled what they claim is the world's first commercial Gigabit LTE network and device. With the Gigabit LTE NETGEAR device, 'Nighthawk M1', expected to be made available to Australian consumers from late February 2017, Telstra has confirmed that its Gigabit LTE service has already been introduced in 'select state capital city CBDs (central business districts), with more to follow'.
In addition to offering downlink speeds of up to 1Gbps, Telstra's new network capability also reportedly delivers up to double the previous uplink speeds. In a press release announcing the new device and Tesltra's network upgrade, it was noted that the latter's Gigabit LTE service has been made possible by LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) features including 4×4 MIMO, tri-band carried aggregation (3C) and higher order modulation (256QAM). Meanwhile, on the uplink, Telstra's new network capability uses 64QAM and two-carrier aggregation for a peak upload speed of up to 150Mbps.
Commenting on the matter, Telstra's Group Managing Director Mike Wright, was cited as saying: '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 … 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. 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.'
Australia, Ericsson, NETGEAR, Qualcomm, Telstra (incl. Belong), Wireless, LTE