How long will 5G take to roll out?

In May , Optus switched on its first six 5G mmWave commercial sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, as the carrier reached 1 million 5G-capable devices on its network. In July 2020, Optus had announced it was testing 5G mmWave technology in partnership with Ericsson.

Optus expects to roll out this new capability across its 5G network later this year as commercial mmWave devices begin to hit the market. “It’s important to us that we look at innovative ways to amplify our 5G technology assets so that our customers receive the best and fastest 5G network possible.

In 2019, Vodafone partnered with Nokia to provide Vodafone Hutchison Australia customers with 5G; services started in 2020. The first areas 5G rolled out to included Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Perth, the Gold Coast, Newcastle, Central Coast, and Geelong .

Still, Telstra expects its customers to average between 50 and 300Mbps on 5G. On the other hand, Optus advertises typical evening speeds of 214Mbps on its 5G network and backs it up with a 50Mbps speed guarantee.21 Ara 2021

The Optus’ 5G fixed home broadband plan launch was very limited — only available in a couple of suburbs. The telco announced further plans to roll out 50 additional 5G sites in the upcoming months, on route to a 1,200 site Australian-wide launch by March of 2020 .