AUST today: We lead 5G race: Telstra Telstra boss Andrew Penn is...

AUST today:
We lead 5G race: Telstra
Telstra boss Andrew Penn is spruiking 5G as the biggest weapon in the telco’s arsenal, saying the group has the first mover advantage on the new technology. “Our close relationship with technology partners (Ericsson and Qualcomm) mean that we are at the global forefront of 5G and will have first mover advantage,” Mr Penn said at the ASX CEO Connect event yesterday.

Telstra is looking to get early access to the 5G spectrum that it bought at the recent auction for $386 million, to start delivering 5G services to customers this year. “We now have 200 sites that are 5G-enabled across our network … our global leadership means that our customers will be among the first in the world to experience 5G technology,” Mr Penn said. “It will cement mobile business as the engine room of the future.”

The 5G spectrum not only allows Telstra to offer mobile services as soon as the next generation of smartphones hit the market, but also reduces the cost of moving data on the network and frees up capacity on the 4G network. The real tangible benefits of 5G are unlikely to make a mark on Telstra’s books until 2020, coinciding with the completion of the NBN rollout. Mr Penn said 5G and NBN would be complementary and it was unlikely a large number of homes would ditch fixed services altogether for fixed wireless services.

The telco last week posted a 28 per cent fall in first-half profit to $1.2 billion, with Mr Penn warning that margins on Telstra’s fixed broadband business were flatlining because of the high NBN wholesale access prices. But he was upbeat about the prospects of its mobile business, saying Telstra would have 5G handsets in its customers’ hands within the next six months.