TPG Telecom, which offers mobile services under the Vodafone Australia banner, has announced that it has reached ‘over 85% 5G population coverage in ten of Australia’s largest cities and regions’. In a press release regarding the development the operator said the milestone had been achieved with the launch of its 5G Standalone (SA) core, which ‘connects devices directly to 5G without the need for a 4G connection, supercharging its 700MHz spectrum holdings’. The company noted that it had partnered with Ericsson and Nokia to build its 5G SA core, with the former providing the packet core solution and the latter, its subscriber data management solution.
In terms of coverage details, TPG Telecom confirmed that over 85% of the population in the following locations were now within its 5G network footprint: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Wollongong and New South Wales Central Coast. More than 100 5G sites are reportedly being added each month, with around 160 sites to be upgraded in November. Further, TPG said it currently has ‘around one million 5G-enabled devices on the network’, while SA capability upgrades for major 5G devices are due ‘in [the] coming weeks’.
Outlining other key facts regarding its mobile infrastructure, the company claimed that the launch of its 5G SA core had tripled average site coverage footprint, increasing the addressable market for 5G fixed-wireless, while also improving latency by around 30%. Meanwhile, with TPG Telecom currently using both the 700MHz and 3.5GHz bands for 5G, it has in the ‘testing phase’ for 26GHz band frequencies, which it acquired in April this year.