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The telco has begun early tests of its 4G network in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, showing off speeds up to 67Mbps.
(Credit: Vodafone)
According to a post on Vodafone’s blog, the battered telco has begun testing its LTE network in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney, hitting up to 67Mbps in speed.
Alexandria, Bronte and Randwick were the three suburbs used for testing, with Vodafone claiming that the tests went “off without a hitch”.
The telco was quick to note — and to presumably head off criticism — that the test speeds were unlikely to be indicative of the actually user experiences, saying that, “on Vodafone 4G, we’re expecting actual speeds between 2-40Mbps”.
The post also talked about the tests using 10Mhz bandwidth, whereas Vodafone’s actual 4G product will use 20Mhz:
The easiest way to explain bandwidth is to compare it to a highway. A 20MHz highway will have twice the number of lanes to carry traffic than a 10MHz highway, meaning if you’re a tablet or smartphone user, you’re likely to experience less traffic congestion on a bigger (20MHz) highway.
Vodafone state they are the only provider to use 20MHz in all Australian states, and thus “giving it a future-proof edge over competitors”.
Vodafone has been promising the launch of a 4G service since successfully trialling an LTE test run in Newcastle back in October 2010. That test gave speeds of 73Mbps.
In February 2011, a joint press release from Vodafone and technology partner Huawei said that Vodafone’s LTE servers were expected to start later that year.
While no new timeline has been revealed for consumer services at this stage, the blog post referred to the testing as being “early days”.
