The Singtel-owned Optus won 47 regional lots for a total amount of $185.1 million across North and Central Queensland, South East Queensland/Northern NSW, regional Victoria and South Australia, Tasmania and Southern/Western NSW.
Optus joins both Telstra and Vodafone Hutchison in successfully buying up spectrum to underpin 5G services.
The company says the new regional spectrum licences add to its existing large holdings of metropolitan 3.4 GHz spectrum and will enable it to offer 5G services to customers across Australia.
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“Optus continues to invest in our network where it matters most to people, where they live, work and play. Whether you live in the cities, regional centres or smaller remote towns, we are expanding our premium national mobile network and improving customer experience.”
Wong says Optus has delivered live trials and shared 5G proof of concepts in its network and in test environments including a “world class 5G Live! Showcase” during the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games which featured 8K video streaming on-the-go on Optus’s live 5G trial indoor and outdoor network, in which speeds of 16Gbps were achieved.
As reported by iTWire on Monday, Australia’s biggest telco Telstra has picked up the largest number of lots in the 5G spectrum auction organised by the Australian Communication and Media Authority in the 3.6 GHz band.
Telstra paid just over $386 million to acquire 143 lots in the auction and now has 60 MHz of contiguous spectrum in all major capital cities and between 50-80 MHz of contiguous 5G spectrum in all regional areas.
And Vodafone Hutchison has made a "significant spectrum investment" in spectrum, along with TPG Telecom, to deliver what it says it is one of the key pieces in its 5G preparations.
Mobile JV, the joint venture company between subsidiaries of the two telcos, picked up 131 lots in the 3.6 GHz band for $263 million.