Telstra to drop prices for LTE launch

Telstra's commercial launch of long-term evolution (LTE) devices later this year will coincide with a drop in price of the telco's existing mobile broadband offerings, according to a source.

An LTE dongle
(Credit: Telstra)

The telco plans an overhaul of its Liberty mobile broadband plans as it launches LTE services for consumers later this year, ZDNet Australia understands. Instead of the 400MB, 1GB, 3GB, 7GB and 12 GB plans in place today, Telstra will offer 1GB, 4GB, 8GB and 15GB plans, at the same price points. This means that 1GB would be $29.95 per month on a standalone contract, while the 15GB plan would be $89.95 per month.

On Monday, Telstra began offering LTE services to business and enterprise customers for use within 5km of the CBDs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The telco is offering around 1500 Sierra-Wireless broadband dongle devices to customers on the brand new network to start with.

Although Telstra has not yet revealed real-world speeds for the device, ZDNet Australia understands that Telstra is advising that users will achieve download speeds of between 2 megabits per second (Mbps) and 40Mbps, with an average of over 30Mbps in LTE areas because there will only be 1500 users on the service. When in areas outside of the CBD LTE network radius, the devices will fall back to Telstra's existing Next G network.

Telstra wouldn't officially confirm any of the details provided to ZDNet Australia, instead indicating only that the telco would reveal real-world LTE speeds closer to the launch.