Telstra Australia

Telstra addresses the market’s need for speed with HSPA+ Dual Carrier

In 2008, Telstra was experiencing dramatic growth in demand for its Next G (3G ) service. 3G penetration had grown to 54 percent, up nearly 20 percent from the previous year. In the second half of 2008, mobile data accounted for 36 percent of Telstra’s mobile services retail revenue – a significantly higher proportion than that achieved by most other operators.

Determined to deliver the best possible user experience to its customers, Telstra in 2009 launched the world’s first HSPA+ network, featuring downlink and uplink peak data rates of 21 and 5.8 Mbps, respectively, and twice the capacity of regular HSPA. The announcement also revealed the Telstra Turbo 21, an HSPA+ USB modem that the operator had created with the help of Qualcomm and Sierra Wireless.

Barely a year later, Telstra deployed the world’s first HSPA+ Dual Carrier upgrade. Aggregating two 5 MHz carriers (or channels), HSPA+ Dual Carrier doubles the effective transmission rate both in the core coverage area and on the cell edge. In terms of speed, HSPA+ Dual Carrier allows Telstra to provide peak network downlink speeds of 42 Mbps – completely optimizing the mobile broadband experience for consumers. As it did with HSPA+, Telstra worked closely with Ericsson, Qualcomm and Sierra Wireless to deploy the upgrade.

Always eager to push the technology envelope, Telstra is already looking forward to the next evolution. Said the company’s CEO, David Thodey, “While LTE remains on Telstra’s technology roadmap, there is a huge amount of potential remaining in HSPA+. We will take full advantage of this by again doubling our peak network speeds to 84 Mbps through the implementation of HSPA+ Dual Carrier plus MIMO technology during 2011.”

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