This week, Telecom New Zealand greeted a small group of customers in Auckland and Wellington onto its 4G LTE trials.
In this trial around 100 individuals – across the consumer, SME and Gen-i segments will take part. The main aim of this trial is to gather information on how people will use the 4G LTE network. Telecom plans to have a commercial service primarily available later this calendar year and will roll out the technology as per the demand.
Chris Quin, Telecom CEO Retail stated that the customer trials were another big move towards telecom offering 4G LTE to its customers.
As per Mr Quin, “We are already offering a high quality experience and some groundbreaking products and services over our 100% 3G Smartphone Network - and we’ve had very good feedback from our customers on the quality, speed and reliability of the network.”
He further added, “However, we know that the future is about data, and increasingly it will be about mobile data – we’re seeing an explosion in mobile technology and mobile data use globally and New Zealand is no exception to that. Telecom is focused on making sure New Zealand stays ahead of the technological wave, and the trialing and rollout of a 4G LTE network is an essential part of that.”
According to Gen-i Australasia CEO, “The trial will provide Gen-i clients with the opportunity to experience 4G LTE and to look at new opportunities for leveraging Telecom’s high speed network for business benefits.”
“The move towards a new 4G LTE network presents our clients with the flexibility to consider delivering applications and services across our high speed mobile network. Telecom has once more shown through its investment in optical transport and today’s announcement, that we are committed to providing the right capabilities to support New Zealand business – anytime, anywhere and via a range of devices”, he further added.
Late last year, Telecom declared that it had installed the 4G LTE technology in four locations (Lower Hutt, the North Shore of Auckland, Waipukurau in the southern Hawke’s Bay and in a small area of Rotorua) and would be testing the equipment over the Christmas and New Year break. The trials in Auckland and Rotorua, and Alcatel-Lucent in Wellington and Waipukurau are being conducted by Huawei
Consumer and SME Customer Trials
Over Telecom’s network, each consumer and SME trials has been equipped with a device capable of receiving a 4G LTE signal.
Five people from Capacity Infrastructure Services are taking the part in trial, who deal with the water networks in Wellington, Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt. As per IT specialist at Capacity,” He could see real business benefits in the faster speeds offered by 4G LTE, and that his team was looking forward to putting the network through its paces during the trial.”
He further stated, “We have staff who is offsite a lot, and they often need to use Google Maps, Google Earth and get remote access to databases for their work. The speed of the mobile connection makes a big difference, and we’d be very interested to see what 4G LTE can do for us.”
Gen-i Client Trials
The Gen-i client trials have been modified to meet the requirements of each organization and consist of the consumption of relevant Gen-i ICT services alongside the 4G LTE network. Westpac, Mitre10 and TVNZ are the Gen-i clients involved in the trial.
Read more: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1302/S00325/telecom-welcomes-customers-onto-4g-lte-trial.htm
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