Communications Day reports today that Telstra is poised to begin LTE trials in May, but is carefully positioning the technology as a gradual evolution from high-end HSPA – leaving plenty of scope in the meantime to wring ever higher speeds from its Next G network.

Alongside longtime technology partner Ericsson, Telstra has also brought Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks on board for the trials, which are expected to run for three to six months in Victoria. In addition, it will be drawing on the learnings from subsidiary network CSL in Hong Kong as the firm conducts its own LTE tests with ZTE. The tests will be conducted in 2.6GHz frequency bands approved by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, as well as some 1.8Ghz bands.

Telstra is already pushing 3G speeds towards those initially anticipated from LTE, most recently with its announcement of a network upgrade to 42Mbps headline speeds. But executive director for wireless Mike Wright put the firm’s LTE plans in context. “We believe LTE is clearly on the 3GPP roadmap. We see that as the ultimate evolution as we go through out of HSPA; what we’re aiming to do is to really make that transition between the two technologies seamless,” he said.

“We see LTE coming in as a means of extending the capacity and maintaining the performance of the network, and ultimately we’d like to see the transition between the two almost seamless; customers shouldn’t really know the difference, or care! This evolution [will help] us deal with the data tsunami to come.”

“It’s not going to be a revolution – it’s an evolution,” agreed acting COO Michael Rocca. “The benefits... are really about squeezing more out of the network investments.” Rocca also suggested that Telstra’s ongoing Ethernet backhaul rollout would also be a key advantage in later LTE deployments. “There’s nobody we know of that has the sort of backhaul capabilities we do. And that’s half of the equation,” he said.

“There’s not much point introducing the latest technologies and watching demand go up, if you don’t have the flexible backhaul technologies we have; a lot of carriers will run into problems.”

Nevertheless, Telstra isn’t the only carrier pushing ahead with LTE testing. Optus parent SingTel – also in partnership with Ericsson – unveiled its own LTE trial showcase last week and Optus itself is set to run an Australian trial in a similar timeframe to Telstra.  

“Optus is a significant participant in this program and will deploy its LTE trial in Sydney, NSW in the next few months,” said Optus mobile director Andrew Smith. “The (SingTel) group initiative enables SingTel to leverage the benefits of working with multiple vendors and sharing the findings across the group. Optus and SingTel will be able to assess the readiness, capability and performance of a number of leading vendors.”

Meanwhile, Wright forecasts that Telstra would employ a similar spectrum strategy for LTE as it currently does with 3G, using two distinct bands to marry coverage with capacity. “We would see an LTE running as digital dividend frequency for coverage, and higher frequency – 2.6GHz – for capacity. Ultimately, it’s the logical way these networks go,” he said.