By Claire Reilly 

Optus has announced plans to expand its 4G network in Australia, with the telco launching a high-speed LTE network in Canberra. Optus’ major competitor Telstra is currently the only provider with coverage in the city, while Vodafone is yet to provide 4G access anywhere in Australia (the network is expected to launch in June).

The Canberra Optus network will run on TD-LTE technology, and will be the first of its kind in Australia to use a single frequency channel for data transfer.

“Optus’ customers will start to enjoy the next generation of 4G with the pilot stage of our 4G TD-LTE network kicking off in Canberra,” said Günther Ottendorfer, managing director of Optus Networks.

“Currently, 4G networks in Australia run on FD-LTE, which uses two separate frequency channels, one for data travelling in each direction. TD-LTE is a new flavour of 4G technology, where the upload and download of data happens on the same frequency but at different times.”

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As part of the new network roll-out, Optus will also begin a customer trial of the first products to be compatible with this TD-LTE technology — an Optus 4G dual band dongle and Wi-Fi modem.

Together, the combined FD-LTE and TD-LTE coverage across Australia has been branded by Optus as the “4G Dual Band Network”, as Optus vice president of Mobile Engineering Andrew Smith explained.

“As part of our national rollout this coming year, many new mobile sites and upgrades across metro locations will have the combined 4G technologies of TD-LTE and FD-LTE, allowing customers with compatible devices access to Optus’ superfast 4G in more places,” said Smith.

“Optus will be the first Australian carrier to take its network to the next level,” he added. “Our aim is to expand coverage for both types of 4G in the coming year to reach over 70 per cent of the metro population by mid-2014.

“The combined 4G TD 2300MHz/FD-LTE 1800 MHz networks referred to as Optus’ 4G Dual Band Network will be available to customers using 4G Dual Band devices, with the first of those devices, mobile broadband modems, available from early June.”

Optus' current mobile network: Canberra only has access to 3G coverage (shown in yellow), while parts of Sydney and Newcastle have 4G (shown in blue). (Source: Optus Mobile Coverage map).

Telstra's current mobile network: As Optus' only competitor in the 4G mobile space in Canberra, Telstra has extensive 4G coverage. 4G coverage (download speeds of 2 to 40Mbps) are shown in dark blue, while download speeds of 1.1 to 20 Mbps are shown in light blue, and download speeds of 550kbps to 3Mbps are shown in red. (Source: Telstra Coverage Map).