Telstra mobile network coverage expands to 2.3m sq km
At Telstra, we have thousands of people who live and work in regional Australia. For many of them, their job is to make a genuine contribution to the communities in which they live by helping people connect wherever they may be.
This was brought home to me when we recently reached a milestone of activating our 7,700th mobile site which tipped our coverage footprint over 2.3million sq km of the Australian land mass (additionally we cover approx 1 million sq km to sea but that is another story). By any measure, on any network in the world, covering this area and more than 99% of the population with 3G wireless broadband (and now building out our 4G networks) is a huge undertaking.
To put this in perspective, we now have Telstra mobile network coverage across our continent that is more than the combined landmasses of France, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Italy, Greece and Ireland.
This extent of coverage with 7,700 bases station towers seems impossible when you consider some of the larger nations have less coverage with tens of thousands of bases. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly the superior 850 MHz frequency we use allows the signal to travel further from each site and secondly the ingenuity of our engineers has tailored coverage for Australian conditions and distances. We are one of the few operators in the world with mountain top towers capable of up to 200km of cell range using special cell extension software. For even better reception we also use locally optimised power amplifiers and low noise receivers to extract the last bit of signal when combined with phones rated with our customer friendly ‘Blue Tick’.
Thinking of all this gives me a sense of pride in our engineering team however, we are just part of the equation. What is just as inspiring is the number of Telstra people who live and work across our vast country and who everyday drive great distances and stay away from home for long periods of time to roll out our networks, connect our customers and resolve any concerns they might have.
To recognise the milestone of 2.3 m sq km of Next G® network coverage, we asked the folk on the ground to send us a photo of themselves showing where the Telstra mobile network operated – no matter how far flung they were. The response was overwhelming with hundreds of photos being sent in from Riverton, Sabai Island, Willalooka, Bogan Shire, Kariong, Gunning – you name the town. I invite you to watch a collation we pulled together of Telstra people, standing in front of their town name (where there is a town sign) and I sincerely apologise to those whose image we can’t show here.
I want to thank all our staff who work to keep Australia connected.
NEXT G ® Covers Me video
They do a good job as well, when we moved to Gundaroo Telstra could not provide us with a cabled land line because the cabling coming into the area was full and they were not going to upgrade this until the NBN comes here, which is about 15 years away as we are not even on the agenda yet, so they provided us with a wireless fixed line which operates just like a land line but uses wireless instead. It runs with a standard wired phone number and all charges are the same as that for a cabled service so we are not out of pocket. The only problem of course is that we have to have a fixed wireless broadband service as well and this costs us (aged pensioners) an arm and a leg or nearly half a weeks pension each month for only 15gig where with cable and ADSL we could get 50gig for a 3rd of the cost which we are not happy about as we use our broadband to keep in touch with our friends and family which is vital when you live in a rural area. Loyalty as a customer, over 56 years in various locations with land line, mobile and broadband, means nothing to Telstra unfortunately but I guess this is what you have to put up with once you retire and go on a pension. Don’t get me wrong I appreciate what Telstra has done, just wish they were the same price, or similar, to that of their competitors.
Speaking of “Blue Tick” why do you call it blue? It is clearly a white tick on a blue background.It has always struck me as an odd perception.
Hi Brian, Back in the day, Telstra branding was blue and tick represents correct, works etc…
I’m with Mick on this. Although not a pensioner, the price of wireless broadband fir the amount of data is totally disproportionate with the amount of data received. For the life of me can not understand how it is ‘metro comparable’. For those that don’t have any other option, I believe there should be different pricing and options. One HD movie and your months data is effectively gone. In this day and age 15gb is nothing. Actually quite pathetic really. Add to that the constant disconnections and congestion at times which brings it down to 10kbps (not usable) on most days at specific times and you could call it ‘robbery’. But Telstra couldn’t give a hoot. Just keep taking our money and told we will fix it… Still waiting…
I don’t think Telstra has any requirement to provide you wireless internet at comparable prices to ADSL because of where you chose to live. It would be like not having a supermarket accessable, but expecting a milkbar to provide it to you at the same price.
Just after leaving a comment I receive a call saying that $750 needs to come out of my pocket to fix reception due to changes TELSTRA has made to the network. And you guys want to brag about your coverage? We are not even 40km from CBD. Never have I come across such a thing in my life. Pathetic is the nicest thing I can say about Telstra and this blog at this moment.
Hi Michael. I’ll get someone to have a look into this and give you a call. Brendan
Is Nyabing Western Australia 6341 in that 2.3 million sq km, because we have very poor coverage on the 3G network. No one wants to listen or help us out in any way.
Yes Darren, same ‘ol, same ‘ol with Tel$tra; coverage here in Tasmania is discraceful, in the southwest a tourism resort just recently reopened, it’s attracting large numbers of tourists year round and yet Tel$tra doesn’t wanna know about the place…and Tel$tra, stop pulling wool over our eyes, since when do buildings in Hobart’s CBD represent mountain tops…geez, get serious Tel$tra, build a phone tower on Mount Wellington then you can beat your chests about mountain top towers!
Would an external antenna or something along those lines help with boosting coverage in those rural areas?
Hi Kara, External antennas do that. if it’s about where you live? What’s your postcode and contact number? Email them to me please exchange.telstra@team.telstra.com
I think its great that Telstra has coverage where others dont & that comes at a cost but there is still room for improvement. I work all over country WA & there are many towns that have boardline coverage in the middle of town because the mobile tower is too far out of town. RMCP is helping a few WA towns & many roadhouses to gain coverage but there is still a lot of work to be done. Find the towns that have a mobile tower 20-30Km out of town & you will find unhappy Next G customers. Leave those sites as coverage bases & install a capacity site in the town to give customers real speed that Next G can offer, speed is directly proportional to signal strenght.
Paul there’s a few reasons why base stations are built outside of town, the first is the higher up you can put the antennas the better it will work over a longer distance so nearby hilltops are great fro that and the other is people just don’t want a pole in their town.
If you hear about a proposed base station and hear about people complaining that they don’t want it please don’t be the silent majority, stand up and fight to get it built or the noisy minority will get their way and everyone will suffer as a result.
It would be very interesting to compare the land-mass coverage, number of base-stations etc of Telstra’s competitors e.g Optus and Vodafone.
That is great news, it is a pity that I live in an inner suburb of Sydney and cannot get mobile access.
Hi Paul, Where in Sydney are you? If you email me your details and a contact number I’ll get someone to look into it for you. exchange.telstra@team.telstra.com
Wow it’s amazing to see how much Telstra has brough to the communications sector within australia over the years, just think of where our infastructure would be without them. Regarding the Price vs Download on Wireless, it’s a difficult situation, as Telstra is still in fairly early stages of Rolling out 4G coverage in particular.
I think Michael has actually hit the nail on the head without realising it when he talked about network congestion. The more usage that Telstra allows on the plans, the more people will chock up the network with massive download and the capacity just isn’t there yet to support the same traffic as ADSL/Cable etc. I am sure the value will increase as the network and Technology moves forward, but it’s just like when ADSL was 6-8 yrs ago, ppl paying $100+ for a 12gb service at 512kbps and look at it now! I’m sure Telstra DOES care a great deal about giving it’s customers fast and generous wireless solutions, but you have to crawl before you can walk.
Can you tell me why so many regional areas, like Lockyer, Gympie and Toowoomba have full 4G access where most of Brisbane doesn’t? I live 10km from the CBD and there is basically no point to being on a 4G network unless I’m at work where it’s unnecessary.
Not wishing to appear rude but it is great to see that finally regional Australia is getting something before urban Australia is even if it is the bigger towns, would be nice to see rural Australia being being recognized a bit better than it does as well as they are the ones who need it more. In your case maybe its just that upgrades were scheduled and they just “got lucky” as the newer system is now in place. Now would like to see those with no other option than wireless broadband, like me, were winners as well but wont hold my breath on that one.
i work 120km north of tennant creek in NT, with no telstra service but some people do get sms from time to time. is there any way of getting coverage on my htc velocity phone? as this phone has no port for a external aerial.
thanks
Paul, thanks for your feedback & I appreciate that many ppl don’t like poles in their back yard but the two instances I have in mind are 1. there is already a structure in the middle of town supporting the microwave link out to said basestation out of town. very easy to put a couple omnis up & an RBS in the exchange. 2. this example is similar, exchange fed by microwave link on a tower but doesn’t have an RBS in it. these examples I’m sure are repeated regularly. both these examples have easy solutions, the structure is there & so is power & accommodation for the RBS. RBS is radio base station for non T ppl.