Australian carrier Telstra, which always seems to be on the leading edge of breaking speed barriers, has reached 100mbps for the 4G mobile broadband technology known as LTE, over a record-breaking distance of 75 kilometers, during a trial with Nokia Siemens Networks. If the two can successfully convert that into a real-world deployment, the question of how best to serve remote and rural areas with true broadband might be over.
The two companies are testing the application of LTE technology in regional areas through a combination of laboratory and long-range field testing, to determine the limitations that physical distance imposes on the LTE customer experience. The trials successfully achieved peak speeds of 100mbps download and 31mbps upload in the region between Mount Hope and Mount Burrumboot in central Victoria. The trials used the NSN’s LTE-ready Flexi Multiradio Base Station and Evolved Packet Core (EPC), with pre-commercial LTE USB dongles from third-party vendors.
Michael Rocca, chief operations officer, said the range testing is of critical importance for the future of this technology in regional Australia. “Australia has the sixth-largest landmass with the ninth-lowest population density in the world, so any technology we introduce has to travel long distances, cover large areas and still perform to the levels Telstra customers have come to enjoy.
“Telstra’s Next G network does this extremely well today and we want to ensure that when we bring LTE technology to Australian consumers, our customer experience remains one of the best in the world,” Rocca added.
“The benefits of LTE in urban environments are currently being deployed globally, having already been extensively tested and the business benefits well understood Kalevi Kostiainen, head of Nokia Siemens Networks, Australia and New Zealand. Through this unique joint trial we can now see how LTE can be extended to provide cost effective solutions for rural and remote environments.”
The societal impact of this should be highlighted as well. Those remote areas that could use this type of technology include swaths of the American south and West, as well as large parts of emerging markets such as India and China. The expense of building out fiber has often made bringing broadband to the rural and remote populace an impossibility, hamstringing the willingness of businesses to move there and stunting economic growth and jobs creation. Long-range LTE that can provide business-level broadband as well as close the digital divide for consumers could be a big game-changer.
