By Stuart Corner
Business IT - Networking
Page 1 of 2
Telstra has become the first telco in the world to launch dual carrier HSPA+ services offering downstream speeds up to a theoretical maximum of 42Mbps.
The service is presently available in all capital city CBDs [to within 5km of the CBD] and selected metropolitan areas, associated airports and in more than 100 regional locations. (Telstra's web page devoted to the new service has a link to a list of all areas where the service is available, but the link was not working at the time of writing.)Telstra is quoting "typical" downstream bandwidths in the range 1.Mbps to 20Mbps. A Telstra video showed the modem delivering around 10Mbps in a number of locations in the Melbourne CBD and iTWire was able to obtain 10Mbps from our office in the inner Sydney suburb of Enmore.(This was achieved using speedtest.net and a server in Canberra operated by AussieHQ Interestingly the other two available nearby servers, operated by Optus in Melbourne and Sydney, delivered less than half this speed).The service is being offered at the same price as current Next G broadband services (the modem is available at $0 on a $69 per month 6GB contract, or can be bought for $299). However because of a shortage of supply of the modems, they are being offered initially only to Telstra Enterprise And Government and Telstra Business customers with account managers.Mike Wright, Telstra's executive director of networks and access technologies, said Telstra had at present only 2000 of the modems, dubbed the Telstra Ultimate USB Modem, but was expecting more shortly. "There is another shipment coming in late September and from then and after that we will have the supply to meet demand forecasts."He added that, like previous HSPA services launched on Next G, the new service and delivery of the new modem had been made possible only through close co-operation between Telstra, network supplier Ericsson, chipmaker Qualcomm and modem manufacturer, Sierra Wireless.
Telstra logo.
On Monday, Australian telecommunications company Telstra has introduced dual carrier  standard for broadband Internet business customers in the  network. This is the first time this technology is being introduced on national scale. The bandwidths the users can deploy increased into two to three times, with Telstra becoming the world’s fastest national mobile broadband service. The switch started with enabling the service for premium users. After some feedback, Telstra may expand the plan.

=== Introduction ===

The higher speeds for wireless are intended to simplify and ease multitasking of users.

John Paitaridis, Telstra's executive director, network products and services in Enterprise & Government, said "One of the reasons we decided to launch first to Enterprise And Government and Business customers is that clients are saying that their ability to access applications quicker makes a difference to their business and when they start to equate time savings and doing calculations around productivity it does become a return on investment."

Telstra Business Group Managing Director Deena Shiff also stated that the efforts aren't as sudden as it might seem, having feedback of many users as the base.


=== Technology ===
Telstra GSM and NextG mobile phone tower
Previous modems were able to reach peak speed 21Mbps, with real life speeds ranging from 0.5Mbps to 8 Mbps. The theoretically expected maximum of the new technology is 42Mbps with user speeds varying between 1.1 and 20 Mbps. The new speed is twice as fast. This is caused by that the dual-carrier "Evolved High-Speed Packet Access" technology allows networks to send and receive wireless data using two channels simultaneously. This technology can be deployed on Next G networks. Telstra switched to them in February, thus making the switch to HSPA possible now.

=== Election campaign ===
Tony Abbott in 2010.
Telstra delayed the implementation of the new technology until elections end. This decision was intended to avoid wrong interpretation of them by . Coalition's claims include that wireless networks can be an alternative to the  "''fibre-to-the-home''" proposal to introduce more expensive wired Internet. The announcement of the new technology, initially planned on August 25, was delayed, with Telstra spokesman Craig Middleton explaining, "We just didn't want to feel like we were influencing the telecommunications debate."

The political parties have different plans on development and funds on the Internet. The Labor party aims to spend AUD 43 billion to bring 1 Gbps wired Internet nationwide, and the Coalition plans to spend AUD 6 billion to introduce a variety of improvements including upgrade of existing copper Internet as well as expansion of wireless Internet to support 12Mbps. Opposition leader Tony Abbott has said in the past that Australians shouldn’t assume wireless technologies won’t ever be comparable to fixed-line technology. Telstra's upgrade shows that wireless broadband is reaching the 100 Mbps minimum speeds promised by Labor's national broadband network.

=== Distribution ===
A NextG Telstra wireless USB modem
Telstra has only 2000 devices which support the new technology. This is why the opportunity to try it out is being given only to the Business plan customers, and they receive it for the same price as they were paying for the previous NextG plan. Since October 5, the device will be available for sale, with the Business customers able to buy it with 75% discount and a prepaid data allowance. The upgrade is expected to cover roughly 50% of the population. This is happening at the same time as one of Telstra's competitors  is doubling data download quotas on mobile cap plans.

As some testing showed, real life download speeds reached only about the half of the maximum. Telstra executive director of wireless Mike Wright explained that the predicted figures were the estimates, with real life speeds lower due to interfering environmental conditions: "It's possible to achieve better than the typical user speed claims, but those claims occur in the ideal network environment with good signal quality. When you're out on the streets you get a lot of variation where the network is subject to signal quality, your location and the network load."