Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) announced yesterday that it's "on track" to cover 75% of Australians with its 5G network by June this year. The Telstra share price finished yesterday's session up by 0.58% to $3.49 per share.
Telstra operates Australia's largest 5G network and began rolling out 5G home internet coverage at the end of last year. It announced in August 2020 that it aims to cover 75% of Australians by June 2021 and says it's "well on track" to reach the target.
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Telstra's 5G coverage
Telstra believes it now has enough customers connected to the faster network speeds to attain an accurate picture of how fast its services will be for the average consumer.
The telco says it has improved download speeds across its network by 19% since the beginning of the 5G rollout, and now offers average speeds within peak evening periods of between 50 – 600 megabits per second (Mbps). The average speed is 378 Mbps.
It's also planning to double the included download data limits on its 5G home internet plans to one terabyte per month, in response to consumer feedback.
mmWave internet technology
mmWave – pronounced as millimetre wave – is a short-range, high-frequency network technology that offers more bandwidth than standard frequency network connections. Telstra also announced it has recently acquired the "mmWave spectrum we need across Australia to power the next evolution of our 5G network."
The company said in its update that it would make a significant difference to the internet speeds of its customers.
We have already begun deploying 5G mmWave in selected sites in 5 capital cities and have achieved record-breaking download speeds using this technology in testing earlier this year.
Implementing mmWave on our 5G network will be like adding more lanes to a freeway, making it even faster while allowing more people on the network at the same time.
Telstra share price snapshot
Having fallen to a multi-year low of $2.66 in November last year, the Telstra share price has since rebounded and now sits almost one dollar higher. Telstra shares are currently up by around 17% in 2021 so far and have gained almost 14% over the past year.
