Vodafone plans to accelerate mobile broadband beyond the city limits, reaching 95% of the Australian population
Vodafone Australia today announced plans to roll out a national mobile broadband network that will provide high-speed coverage to 95% of the Australian population before Christmas 2008.
“We’re accelerating plans to upgrade our mobile network, which will provide our customers with faster download and upload speeds, better performance and improved services,” said Russell Hewitt, Chief Executive Officer at Vodafone Australia.
“Customers want fast, reliable access to mobile internet content and emails on the go and they’ll soon be able to experience a host of exciting, new content destinations. We’re getting ready to deliver the world to our customers, when they want it, and in more places than ever before,” said Russell Hewitt.
“Building a national mobile broadband network is our number one priority for 2008 and we will make it happen on time,” added Hewitt. “Australian business and personal customers will soon enjoy far greater choice as Vodafone begins to deliver mobile broadband to more people in more areas than we’ve ever reached before.”
Vodafone is undertaking a significant mobile broadband network expansion and upgrade to provide High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) to customers, enabling faster download and upload speeds. The upgrade, which is being undertaken as an exclusive project to benefit Vodafone customers, will also improve network coverage and capacity for standard 2G and 3G voice calls.
Commenting on the task ahead, Andy Reeves, Chief Technology Officer at Vodafone Australia, said: “We’ll be going flat-out with teams upgrading sites in every state and territory, simultaneously. It’s a massive project but we’re very confident we can complete Vodafone’s national mobile broadband network upgrade within one year.”
Vodafone will continue its 3G joint-venture with Optus in major metropolitan areas. However, Vodafone will undertake its own upgrade to its 900 MHz and 2100 MHz mobile network in all other parts of the country.
All Vodafone mobile devices already in market will continue to operate on the new Vodafone mobile broadband network.
Today’s announcement on Vodafone’s national mobile broadband network upgrade comes just days after Vodafone introduced an unprecedented high-value mobile broadband plan, which offers customers 5GB for $39 per month. Vodafone’s new 5GB plan has delivered immediate traction for Vodafone in the critical pre-Christmas period, and it expects customers will respond even more favourably to its plans to extend coverage to areas where 95% of the population live and work.
In October, Vodafone Australia successfully completed a three-year project to upgrade its customer management, billing and provisioning systems, which have already started to deliver improvements in Vodafone’s customer service capabilities. The ‘behind-the-scenes’ upgrade also gave Vodafone the ability to bring new products and services to market faster, while also enhancing Vodafone’s ability to customise the features and benefits of its products to meet individual customer preferences.
Summarising Vodafone’s pre-Christmas volley, Russell Hewitt says: “Vodafone provides business and personal customers with high-value mobile broadband plans and today, we’ve announced a major upgrade to our network that will level the playing field on coverage, which gives Australians more good reasons to switch to Vodafone.”
Vodafone plans to complete its hardware and software vendor selection process early in the New Year and has already commenced work on its core network in preparation for its national mobile broadband upgrade. Vodafone will maintain normal mobile network services during the rollout period.
For further information please contact:
Greg Spears on Mob: 0406 315 014 or via email: greg.spears@vodafone.com