Coverage matters: how we’re leading the way in 5G

We’ve been sharing some great results from the network surveys conducted by umlaut recently. umlaut conducts an ongoing, rigorous series of real-world exercises over several months to put each network in the country through its paces.

All this data points to a clear answer: we lead in 5G coverage by a country mile, as well as having faster average and maximum 5G speeds in more places.

When it comes to 5G coverage, we’re a long, long way ahead of our competitors. We’ve just switched on our 3000th 5G site – that’s nearly three times more 5G sites than our closest rival – and this report makes it clear that when it comes to 5G, coverage matters. We are the leaders in 5G and we’re investing more to bring 5G to more Australians.

umlaut found that we have more 5G availability than any other carrier (PDF 5.5MB) in each of the nine cities surveyed, with availability being the percentage of time spent in 5G coverage along the 5000 kilometres of road surveyed. The results show we’re the largest provider of 5G coverage, and the only provider in cities such as Hobart and the regional city of Toowoomba.

Using a Samsung S20+ 5G in this audit, umlaut also showed that in eight of the nine locations tested, our average and maximum 5G network throughput was higher than other carriers including in Sydney and Melbourne – meaning that as tested, our average and maximum 5G speeds are higher than our competitors across the board in the vast majority of locations included.

In addition to these drive survey results for the nine cities, umlaut also included results on 5G coverage and performance for all of Australia using their own app-based crowd-sourced data, with these results reinforcing our leadership on 5G coverage and speeds as seen in the drive survey results.

We’re incredibly proud that all the work our team are putting into Telstra 5G is paying off in the real world. We’re ahead where it counts, and we reach places where our competitors can’t.

Our 5G coverage now reaches over half of the Australian population. We’re working to grow our 5G footprint further to cover 75 per cent of the Australian population by June this year, and we’re already well on our way to that goal.

To find out where 5G is going to land near you if it hasn’t already, check out our new Mobile Coverage Maps. They’ll show you not only where 5G is right now, but where it’s being built in the coming months.