On 12th June Vodafone launched their 4G LTE network in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth , Adelaide, Newcastle and Wollongong. Vodafone is the last Australian mobile network operator to launch 4G LTE. Telstra having launched back in September 2011 claimed to have 1.5 million 4G subscriptions in February 2013 while Optus launched in July 2012.
You can see Vodafone’s 4G launch press release here.
Vodafone has been working very hard to upgrade its network and improve performance after losing almost 1.5 million subscriptions since 2010 due to network performance and service issues. They are preplacing their radio access equipment with kit from Shenzhen, Guangdong based Hauwei and introducing HSPA+ 3G capability using 2X10MHz of 850 MHz spectrum – the same as used by Telstra’s NextG. This low band 3G will give improved breadth and depth of coverage while the newly launched 4G LTE will provide faster data speeds in the areas it covers.
They had been testing their LTE network in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs in Alexandria, Bronte and Randwick with 10MHz bandwidth. They report blistering uplink data speeds during testing of 60 to 67 Mbps with 25 to 30 Mbps up. Of course this is with just test services on the network. They claim that, similar to other carriers who have already launched LTE, customers can expect to see 2 to 40 Mbps speeds in the real world. As always the data speed is principally dependent on the quality of the radio signal, the amount of contiguous LTE spectrum available, the capacity and quality of the backhaul and core network and the data demands of other users on the shared LTE channel.
In major cities Vodafone do have the advantage of being able to deploy 20MHz of contiguous 1800 MHz spectrum compared to 15 MHz for Optus and 10MHz for Telstra in NSW and Victoria 20MHz in Perth and 15 MHz elsewhere.Theoretical maximum data speed for Category 3 LTE devices with 2X2 MIMO in 20 MHz of spectrum is 102 Mbps. For Telstra with 10 MHz of spectrum also with 2X2 MIMO this maximum speed reduces to 79 Mbps. All other things being equal – which they never are – Vodafone 4G should be 20% faster than Telstra over much of its network.
Mobile Spectrum Holding Prior to 4G Auction Showing Vodafones Strong 1800 MHz Position