If you buy your 4G equipped New iPad in Australia your mobile telephone ability will be:
LTE (700, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) However, the only LTE (marketed as G4) service in Aus at present is Telstra’s '4G' branded LTE' running on 1800MHz. Optus will be rolling out 4G services in the 1800MHz band from April 2012 to Newcastle, Port Stephens, the Hunter Valley and Lake Macquarie areas. Optus 4G services will also be delivered to Sydney, Melbourne and Perth from mid-2012 with further expansion expected shortly after. Your iPad will not work on this service on this frequency, so Aus 4G is unusable. However, there's hope on the distant horizon. It’s widely tipped that 700Mhz LTE services will be the future of LTE in Australia, but the 700Mhz band is currently in use for analog TV broadcasts. They’re due to be culled by 2013, freeing up the precious LTE-friendly 700Mhz spectrum, but who gets it? Aus UMTS services (marketed as 3G) are: 3 on 2100 MHz (roaming to parts of Telstra's 850 network, 2100 50% Shared with Telstra) Optus on 900/2100 MHz Telstra on 850/2100 Vodafone on 850/900/2100 Your iPad will receive all Aus UMTS (3G) frequencies. Aus GSM providers all run on 900MHz and 1800MHZ, so your iPad will work well with those. Keep in mind that, as a general rule, the lower the frequency the better the service over long distances. That's why Telstra's 850MHz UMTS service gives good coverage away from the densely populated areas; at least in those areas that have mobile phone towers nearby. The same applies to Vodafone's 850MHz service, but they have many fewer towers in the less-populated areas. The proposed 700MHz LTE services therefore hold quite a bit of promise for those of us who often travel outside the big population areas. I have plagiarised much of the above from today's Gizmodo report at <http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/03/australian-4g-frequencies-explained/> Regards, Ray Forma Mob +61 (0) 428 596938 -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug>
