Australian telecoms giant Telstra yesterday launched a new 3G mobile broadband network as the firm moves to bolster investor confidence ahead of a troubled share sale.
The company's chief executive, Sol Trujillo, claimed the world's geographically largest national 3G network would offer wireless mobile and Internet access to 98 percent of the people of sparsely-populated Australia.
The "turbo-charged" service, which boasts a beefed up third generation (3G) mobile technology, was five times faster than any other network in the country and would offer its users 12 channels of television, sport and movie downloads.
"You see this is the day ... that life in Australia will be changed forever," said Trujillo of the network, put in place with an investment of A$1 billion (US$746 million) in little more than 10 months.
"This is an exciting day for all Australians, no matter where they live and work," he boasted.
"It is a versatile, high capacity network with headroom for higher speeds in the months and years ahead," said Trujillo, who is at the center of an increasingly bitter war of words over his management style with the Australian government, which holds a 51.8 percent stake in the telecoms firm.
Telstra customers will be able to download material at an average speed of 550 kilobytes to 1.5 megabytes per second (Mbps), with peak network speeds reaching up to 3.6Mbps, increasing to 14.4Mbps early next year.
Telstra's 3G customers, which currently number approximately 420,000 compared to rival Hutchinson's 1 million, will have to buy new handsets which it has been developing in conjunction with Samsung, Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson.
"From today, almost every Australian is going to have access to nationwide, very high speed mobiles and Internet," Telstra group managing director consumer and small business David Moffatt said.
But the glitzy investor briefing strategy at which the plans for the network were unveiled was rudely interrupted when a fire sprinkler activated in the room, sending hundreds of analysts scrambling for cover.
As Telstra touted its new broadband mobile network, analysts also poured more cold water on the significance of the announcement, especially as Australia lags far behind in its fixed broadband infrastructure.
"I'm very sorry but this is a load of rubbish, it's just another network -- nobody's going to use it for watching television services," media analyst Paul Budde of the Web site Budd.com said.
While the technology is good, it is not what Australia really needs and it remains unclear whether the user rates would be affordable for a significant proportion of the population, according to Budde.
Also at the investors' conference on its five-year transformation program, which began nearly a year ago, Telstra forecast 1.5 to 2 percent revenue growth next year, with earnings before interest and tax to rise 2 percent to 4 percent.
The network launch came ahead of the government's unveiling on Monday of the prospectus for the sale of A$8 billion worth of stock, or one-third of its holding, in Telstra.
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
CROSSED A LINE: While entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements before, this time it seriously affected the nation’s security and interests, a source said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty. The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television. The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.” The post followed remarks
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Proposed amendments would forbid the use of all personal electronic devices during school hours in high schools and below, starting from the next school year in August, the Ministry of Education said on Monday. The Regulations on the Use of Mobile Devices at Educational Facilities up to High Schools (高級中等以下學校校園行動載具使用原則) state that mobile devices — defined as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches or other wearables — should be turned off at school. The changes would stipulate that use of such devices during class is forbidden, and the devices should be handed to a teacher or the school for safekeeping. The amendments also say
RSS