PERTH: Vodafone has entered in the race of LET-A through its 4G network on the frequency of 850 and 1800 MHz in order to give a hard hand to Telstra.
he new carrier aggregation gives the benefit of the low-band 850MHz network which provides better building penetration and hence coverage indoors, with the higher-band 1800Mhz network which provides greater coverage outdoors. The new network is aimed at providing better coverage, which Vodafone Chief Technology Officer Benoit Hanssen says will reach ‘95% of the metropolitan population and several major regional centres, to meet the rapidly growing demand for data’.
When Vodafone first announced 4G+ in 2014 and brazenly stated in its press release at the time that it was ‘like Telstra’s 4GX network’, it initially fooled me into thinking that Vodafone had launched carrier aggregation, which I had to correct – as you can see in my article about it at the time.
It is also noted that late last year that Vodafone had delivered 4G+ to Perth, but hadn’t introduced LTE-A carrier aggregation as yet.
However, that has all now changed, with Vodafone’s carrier aggregation LTE-A upgrade of its 4G+ network in metropolitan areas now complete, giving Vodafone an even better 4G network – but is it as fast as Telstra’s 4GX? We’ll look at some Speedtest.net results below.
The telco’s CTO, Benoit Hanssen noted ‘carrier aggregation would support Vodafone’s 4G network, which reaches 95% of the metropolitan population and several major regional centres, to meet the rapidly growing demand for data’, and stated: “Carrier aggregation is a key feature of LTE-Advanced, or 4G+. By combining the existing low-band (850 MHz) and high-band (1800 MHz) 4G networks, we are able to boost the network’s performance and customer experience.
“Whether it’s at university, work, home or while out and about, mobile customers want data and they want their data speeds to be fast and reliable.
“With more than 50% of Vodafone customers now using 4G, demand is huge and growing – 4G data consumption on our network more than doubled last year.
“More than 50% of our data traffic is carried over 4G and through carrier aggregation we can provide those customers who have compatible devices with more reliable access to fast downloads and uploads.”
