A statement from Ericsson said the achievement, last weekend, came in the wake of the company's announcement of standalone new radio software that enabled faster response times and new capabilities to extend 5G coverage.

Ericsson’s head of Australia and New Zealand, Emilio Romeo, said: “Successfully completing Australia’s and the southern hemisphere’s first 5G standalone call is a vital step in driving industrial productivity and bringing Industry 4.0 to life.

"5G is not just another incremental upgrade, but a platform for innovation marking a new era of intelligent connectivity.

"Together with Telstra — one of the world’s first operators to launch 5G commercially on 5G non-standalone — we continue to lead and drive innovation to ensure Australia remains at the forefront of telecommunications technology.”

Channa Seneviratne, Network and Infrastructure Engineering executive, Telstra, said: “Telstra has achieved a number of world and Australian milestones on our 5G journey and the successful completion of Australia’s first 5G end-to-end standalone call on Telstra’s network is the latest entry.

"This continues Telstra’s ongoing participation in global 5G leadership whilst simultaneously driving the deployment of 5G in Australia.

"To date we’ve already launched 5G in 10 cities, and this will increase to at least 35 cities over the next 12 months.

"Making this stand-alone 5G call at our 5G Innovation Centre contributes to our ongoing end-to-end 5G ecosystem learnings. This is another example of the ongoing industry collaboration working within the 5G eco-system and technology partners like Ericsson to pave the way for 5G advancements, and the benefits it will bring all Australians.”