5 ms·

Amazingly the article refrains from providing any numbers for Australia. From the original report: - 5G: 792mbps - 4G: 950mbps https://www.opensignal.com/blo

Amazingly the article refrains from providing any numbers for Australia. From the original report: - 5G: 792mbps - 4G: 950mbps https://www.opensignal.com/blog/2019/07/08/5g-boosts-the-maximum-real-world-download-speed-by-up-to-27-times-4g-users-top-speeds https://www.opensignal.com/blog/2019/07/08/5g-boosts-the-max...

jwilliams 7y ago
Australia has the Telstra "4GX" and Optus "4G plus" networks - it's AU 4G with its own spectrum and band aggregation. I have seen gigabit speeds on 4GX - once, when it was new and the spectrum was hardly used. Since the reports are quoting real world maximums, I'm sure that number is true - but doesn't reflect your average experience.
- contingencies 7y ago
  IIRC the largest ISP in Australia is Vodafone who provide more mobile IP connectivity than anyone else. (Source: Personal discussion with senior management, ~5? years ago)
  - mcbridematt 7y ago
    Whoever told you that was being very liberal with the truth, Vodafone has always been #3 in the Australian mobile market since they started, they were hemorrhaging subscriptions for most of this decade due to underinvestment (known as "Vodafail"). They only started providing wireline services very recently, one of the few "western" markets they were not a full telco player in.
    - contingencies 7y ago
      The discussion was around mobile IP connections. I am not sure if your calculation includes for example (just guessing!) other mobile carrier branded services using their network (MNVO[0]), non consumer (eg. IOT type or vehicular) mobile nodes, etc. I would trust this person implicitly as I used to work for them, they are an engineer not a salesperson and they are not known to extend the truth. While no information is infallible and perhaps they were wrong, given their position, however, I doubt it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virt... Edit: Seems my info was bad. Disappointing! Latest stats page 9 @ http://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/HTA/02127798.pdf http://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/HTA/02127798.pdf and page 31 @ https://www.acma.gov.au/-/media/Research-and-Analysis/Report/pdf/Communications-report-2017-18-pdf.pdf?la=en https://www.acma.gov.au/-/media/Research-and-Analysis/Report... They are indeed third (last!), though currently the fastest growing. Their MNVO base = 350K customers, total = just under 6M customers. Guess it shows how long I've been outta dodge :)
      - mcbridematt 7y ago
        I can't see this being true for IoT/M2M either, sorry. There are a couple of small MVNOs on Vodafone but nothing that would bridge the gap between them and the other players. _Maybe_ they have a good share of multinational contracts from their parent company, that is the only area I can see this statement being true. Vodafone are doing some work with NB-IoT but the general market for this are metro utility companies - the coverage doesn't exist out of these areas to be taken seriously for a nationwide fleet. I would put good money on the number of payment card terminals and power meters alone on Telstra being bigger than Vodafone AU's entire M2M business.
  - pdemporg 7y ago
    As sibling commented, Voda is distant third in Australia. The incumbent is Telstra, with ~50% mobile share and was the dominant fixed provider pre-NBN. Telstra's mobile footprint is vastly superior to the other two MNOs in terms of geographic coverage.
keyle 7y ago
In my experience, you never get that outside of the town centre. 10mbps cap in the suburb on 4G. Anyway, this doesn't really highlight how good our 4G is, it highlights how poor our interconnected fibre network is. It's a bloody multi-generational disaster, a train wreck salvaged. And the price of it all lands on the consumers. For example, I'm on cable, and life is good. When I get migrated (by force) to fibre, I will have less bandwidth and pay more. It's also wildly known at the moment to have constant drop outs. YAY the future. And remote areas are put on Satellite, they were never going to run fibre to the home.
- TheRealSteel 7y ago
  The NBN in its post 2013 form is a disaster but I'm not aware of any areas that are still being migrated from HFC to fibre by them. Are you sure this is the case? If you have HFC you will likely stay on HFC, but you will indeed have your bandwidth downgraded and price increased. Thanks Liberal Party. Regardless, it's not really relevant to an article about 4G vs 5G - they are separate fibre networks I believe?
  - bingobob 7y ago
    HFC Still better than FTTN (VDSL) with most of the HFC network supporting DOCSIS 3.1 supporting speeds of 10Gbit
- batiudrami 7y ago
  It depends where you are. I just did a speed test in the suburbs on a Telstra reseller and got 118MBit, which IME is par for the course around Perth and suburbs. That speed is just double the maximum line speed of my FTTN NBN connection at the same property (but I keep it anyway as household data usage on 4G is uneconomical).
  - incompatible 7y ago
    Uneconomical because 4G doesn't compete in price for data allowances, once you are using more than 50 GB or so per month? At a constant 118 MBit/s I calculate that you'd go through over 50 GB per hour, so the usefulness is limited.

jwilliams 7y ago

Australia has the Telstra "4GX" and Optus "4G plus" networks - it's AU 4G with its own spectrum and band aggregation. I have seen gigabit speeds on 4GX - once, when it was new and the spectrum was hardly used. Since the reports are quoting real world maximums, I'm sure that number is true - but doesn't reflect your average experience.

contingencies 7y ago
IIRC the largest ISP in Australia is Vodafone who provide more mobile IP connectivity than anyone else. (Source: Personal discussion with senior management, ~5? years ago)
- mcbridematt 7y ago
  Whoever told you that was being very liberal with the truth, Vodafone has always been #3 in the Australian mobile market since they started, they were hemorrhaging subscriptions for most of this decade due to underinvestment (known as "Vodafail"). They only started providing wireline services very recently, one of the few "western" markets they were not a full telco player in.
  - contingencies 7y ago
    The discussion was around mobile IP connections. I am not sure if your calculation includes for example (just guessing!) other mobile carrier branded services using their network (MNVO[0]), non consumer (eg. IOT type or vehicular) mobile nodes, etc. I would trust this person implicitly as I used to work for them, they are an engineer not a salesperson and they are not known to extend the truth. While no information is infallible and perhaps they were wrong, given their position, however, I doubt it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virt... Edit: Seems my info was bad. Disappointing! Latest stats page 9 @ http://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/HTA/02127798.pdf http://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/HTA/02127798.pdf and page 31 @ https://www.acma.gov.au/-/media/Research-and-Analysis/Report/pdf/Communications-report-2017-18-pdf.pdf?la=en https://www.acma.gov.au/-/media/Research-and-Analysis/Report... They are indeed third (last!), though currently the fastest growing. Their MNVO base = 350K customers, total = just under 6M customers. Guess it shows how long I've been outta dodge :)
    - mcbridematt 7y ago
      I can't see this being true for IoT/M2M either, sorry. There are a couple of small MVNOs on Vodafone but nothing that would bridge the gap between them and the other players. _Maybe_ they have a good share of multinational contracts from their parent company, that is the only area I can see this statement being true. Vodafone are doing some work with NB-IoT but the general market for this are metro utility companies - the coverage doesn't exist out of these areas to be taken seriously for a nationwide fleet. I would put good money on the number of payment card terminals and power meters alone on Telstra being bigger than Vodafone AU's entire M2M business.
- pdemporg 7y ago
  As sibling commented, Voda is distant third in Australia. The incumbent is Telstra, with ~50% mobile share and was the dominant fixed provider pre-NBN. Telstra's mobile footprint is vastly superior to the other two MNOs in terms of geographic coverage.

keyle 7y ago

In my experience, you never get that outside of the town centre. 10mbps cap in the suburb on 4G. Anyway, this doesn't really highlight how good our 4G is, it highlights how poor our interconnected fibre network is. It's a bloody multi-generational disaster, a train wreck salvaged. And the price of it all lands on the consumers. For example, I'm on cable, and life is good. When I get migrated (by force) to fibre, I will have less bandwidth and pay more. It's also wildly known at the moment to have constant drop outs. YAY the future. And remote areas are put on Satellite, they were never going to run fibre to the home.

TheRealSteel 7y ago
The NBN in its post 2013 form is a disaster but I'm not aware of any areas that are still being migrated from HFC to fibre by them. Are you sure this is the case? If you have HFC you will likely stay on HFC, but you will indeed have your bandwidth downgraded and price increased. Thanks Liberal Party. Regardless, it's not really relevant to an article about 4G vs 5G - they are separate fibre networks I believe?
- bingobob 7y ago
  HFC Still better than FTTN (VDSL) with most of the HFC network supporting DOCSIS 3.1 supporting speeds of 10Gbit
batiudrami 7y ago
It depends where you are. I just did a speed test in the suburbs on a Telstra reseller and got 118MBit, which IME is par for the course around Perth and suburbs. That speed is just double the maximum line speed of my FTTN NBN connection at the same property (but I keep it anyway as household data usage on 4G is uneconomical).
- incompatible 7y ago
  Uneconomical because 4G doesn't compete in price for data allowances, once you are using more than 50 GB or so per month? At a constant 118 MBit/s I calculate that you'd go through over 50 GB per hour, so the usefulness is limited.