Australian cellco Telstra has started selling modem dongles for what it called “the world’s fastest national mobile broadband service” with actual speeds down of up to 20Mbps. Telstra’s HSPA+ network is capable of speeds of up to 42 Mbps down, but it had been selling dongle modems that currently achieve only 21 Mbps down.
The new “Telstra Ultimate USB” modem provides access to the faster speeds in Sydney, other central business districts, nearby airports, some metropolitan hubs and more than 100 regional centers.
The new technology is based around the 3GPP roadmap dual channel HSPA+, which uses two W-CDMA channels. Areas which cover about half the country’s population will be able to access the service. The other half can get typical download speeds ranging from 550 Kbps to 8 Mbps.
Only businesses will be able to get the modems until later this year.
Ericsson, Qualcomm and Sierra Wireless supplied equipment and services. The dongle is not priced for occasional users. There will be two plans $0 upfront with A$69 (US$61) a month over 24 months.