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While the ban on Huawei was enough to drive away TPG from setting up its new network, Optus remains undeterred and has today released its plans to roll out a "game changing" home broadband service.
The company has signalled the "first wave" of the project with 1,200 5G sites planned by March 2020.
In partnership with Nokia, which is supplying the 5G RAN and Fastmile 5G CPEs, Optus 5G sites are now live in two suburbs in Canberra with an additional site live in Sydney and 47 more sites planned to be online by March 2019.
"This is an historic day for Optus as we begin our exciting 5G journey with the announcement of Optus' 5G Home Broadband service," says Optus chief executive Allen Lew.
"We will have more 5G sites going live across Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth and Sydney over the coming months giving a select group of customers the chance to get their hands on our 5G Home Broadband devices in areas of selected suburbs.
"We will open the service up to more customers and more locations as more devices are released and our 5G cells continue to roll-out."
The 5G sites will be rolled out across the ACT, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.
"We currently have three live in-network 5G cells, but we will be turbo-charging our roll-out over the next 12 months to deliver 5G cells on the Optus Mobile Network across Australia with the goal of putting this exciting technology into the hands of our customers as soon as possible," says Lew.
"We will continue to adopt a multi-vendor approach to our network technology infrastructure that will drive innovation and competition, which is critical to Optus' DNA.
Lew adds Optus' multi-year 5G network build will include upgrading and adding new mobile sites while densifying the network with innovative small cell solutions to increase capacity and speed in highly populated inner-city locations.
Anticipating future demand for 5G mobile services, Lew notes the 1,200 sites will include residential locations and other key customer hotspots surrounding airports, train stations, sports stadiums and CBD locations.
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