Australia’s Telestra Hits 300Mbps Wireless Speeds With LTE-A Technology

For many, hopping onto an LTE network feels like the future. It's so vastly superior to older 3G networks that the difference in speed is astounding, but as technology goes, good enough never truly is. LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) is already being tested in some parts of the world, making a beeline for developed nations whose mobile data users can't get enough. This week, Telsta (an Australian carrier) and Ericsson (an equipment provider) worked together in order to help a live network approach 300Mbps. And we're talking about a mobile network here, not a wireline network.


The feat was accomplished using Ericsson's LTE-A software, as Telstra "combined 20 MHz of 1800-MHz spectrum with 20 MHz of 2.6-GHz spectrum to achieve headline speeds of 300 Mbps." In the future, Telstra wants to apply carrier aggregation technology to the coveted 700MHz digital dividend spectrum once the nation switches over from analog to digital TV signls (as the United States already has).

To date, Telstra joins just SK Telecom (in South Korea) and EE (in the United Kingsom) in announcing public LTE-A trials. In stands to reason that LTE-A could be used as one's home connection if the infrastructure is there, and hopefully, it'll scale to the point of being affordable as well.