An Optus 5G installation on a power pole in Sydney.
Image: Chris Duckett/ZDNet
For those approximately 420,000 households lucky enough to be in the Optus 5G footprint, the telco has unveiled a pair of unlimited data plans on Thursday.
The first is an uncapped download and speed plan delivered over 5G, dubbed the entertainer plan, that will cost AU$90 a month, and is said to have average evening download speeds of 214Mbps. The telco said it is also throwing in Optus Sport, a Fetch Mighty box, and a premium channel pack.
The second is labelled as an everyday plan that will cost AU$75 a month and have speeds capped at 100Mbps. The telco said its average evening speeds are 85Mbps on this service.
Optus said the plans will be available later in 2020.
The telco opened up NBN-alternative 5G offerings at the end of 2019.
“The reality today in Australia, is that there are large numbers of homes that want faster broadband, despite the National Broadband Network,” then-CEO Allen Lew said.
Despite having a policy that will see the telco not add customers to congested towers, Optus told ZDNet that it would be “quite a long time” before it reaches that point.
Last month, the telco claimed it completed the world’s first call using 5G non-standalone carrier aggregation using both 2300MHz and 3500MHz spectrum. The call was made on a Samsung Galaxy S20 5G handset and involved backend equipment from Ericsson.
“5G carrier aggregation is a significant technology milestone that provides us with the ability to combine two spectrum frequencies to improve and extend the coverage, speed, and capacity of our 5G network,” Optus managing director for networks Lambo Kanagaratnam said at the time.
“It will also ensure that when our 5G network is in high demand and being used by many customers simultaneously, that these applications run seamlessly.”
The carrier aggregation functionality will be rolled out later this year to Samsung Galaxy S20 5G and Galaxy Note20 5G users, with the network set up for it in Sydney and Melbourne.
Optus currently has over 900 sites upgraded to 5G connectivity.
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Source: Networking - zdnet.com
