back to article TPG to create Australia-wide mobile network

Australian junior telco TPG has announced it will create Australia's fourth mobile network. TPG and Vodafone were today announced as having placed the winning bids in Australia's latest spectrum auction. Telco TPG acquired the sole 2 x 10 MHz lot on offer, for for $1.26 billion. Vodafone Hutchinson Australia (VHA) will write …

  1. julian.smith
    Thumb Down

    TPG mobile

    If their mobile network is anything like their NBN fixed wireless network it will be an under-provisioned pile of crap.

  2. Soruk
    FAIL

    This could very easily turn into another One.Tel ....

  3. OffBeatMammal

    my guess is that they plan to use a mix of the spectrum they just bought and wifi calling by turning broadband customers modems into hotspots to help fill in the backbone in areas where they have less dense coverage.

    Google Fi and Comcast in the US have had some success with that model, and as a (US) T-Mobile customer I do like the wifi calling fallback when the mobile signal isn't strong enough.

    The downside of relying on wifi for backfill though is that the range isn't good so in more rural areas you're less likely to be close to somewhere you can use for a boost.

    This is one instance where having a single infrastructure company who owns the towers and then leases capacity to the 3 or 4 consumer facing telcos would make more sense ... their charter would simply be to provide 100% coverage but rather than each Telco having to build towers they share footprint and amortize costs...

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