Wish your mobile internet speed was just a little faster? We’re always hoping for more, but with a recent benchmark by Telstra, the need for speed is clear.
You probably don’t need to know that 5G internet is faster than 4G, because between the hype and the results, it’s pretty clear 5G is one of the ways we’ll get internet connectivity chugging along at faster speeds. But in case you need yet more proof, you might want to turn to some of the testing going on with Telstra overseas.
One of Australia’s first 5G providers, the company isn’t just rolling out 5G support inside the country. Rather, it’s also testing what 5G can do with new technologies.
Over in Queensland, Telstra and Ericsson have been testing a combination of technologies, throwing together a networking combination using mmWave 5G, the newer 5G technology being primed for rollout in Australia next year alongside the current sub 6GHz”technology, more commonly known as “sub 6”.
While sub 6 has seen speeds as high as 2Gbps, Telstra and Ericsson’s test with mmWave 5G has clocked in at over twice the speed, delivering a test of 4.2Gbps. To put that into regular speak, 4.2Gbps translates into 525 megabytes per second (525MB/s), making it a gigabyte of data transfer in just under two seconds. Crazy.
The 4.2Gbps speed came from the download, while Telstra clocked in 200Mbps on the uplink, translating to a rough upload download speed of 525MB/s down and 25MB/s up.
“Just two years on from our 2Gbps speed demonstration at Mobile World Congress, we’ve more than doubled our existing network peak speed record as we deploy 5G and ready ourselves for the rollout of mmWave technologies in 2021,” said Nikos Katinakis, Executive for Networks and IT at the Telstra Group.
As for when these crazy high speeds will be within reach of regular people, that remains to be seen, because while the hardware is out there — this was tested using the only mmWave device present in Australia, the Telstra 5G WiFi Pro — the spectrum isn’t available yet. Currently, mmWave’s spectrum hasn’t been made for sale, so networks like Telstra’s can’t get you on its new 5G service to download until your heart’s content. But the spectrum will go on sale soon, and that should mean mmWave 5G will see availability in the year ahead.
“mmWave spectrum will go to auction next year and will bring with it massive capacity over short ranges – making it ideal for high bandwidth applications that require a guaranteed level of throughput,” wrote Katinakis in a blog for Telstra.
For now speed hungry mobile users in Australia will have to be content with the current wave of 5G, which can hit roughly half of that 4Gbps speed, maxing out around 2Gbps if you’re in the right area.
