I currently use Woolworths mobile in Sydney however have now changed jobs that involves stints in country areas. What's people's real world opinions on the differences between Telstra retail/wholesale coverage? I understand voice calls will be the same but internet (4G) speeds are meant to be slower using Telstra wholesale compared to their retail coverage. Has anyone experienced this in country areas?
There are a (very) few areas where Optus or Voda have the only tower thanks to the way the gov mobile black spot funding works.
If you are in one area, you really have to check what coverage is best.
If you are traveling, then boost/Telstra retail is the only sensible choice.
This. In lockdown #1 for vic we were in regional vic and 4g Telstra was pulling 1-3mbps. Optus was 70-100mbps
2 logical reasons for this;
1) Demographics greater proportion of Older people in Regional Areas = default to Telstra,
2) if you live regional, you care more about good coverage, so you're happy to pay extra for Telstra.
Therefore most regional people use Telstra and therefore Telstra towers are congested = slower internet speeds as mobile networks are shared networks.
@ESEMCE: Plus it’s the towers like mskeggs said. As it was here. Downloaded some app that had all the coverage towers mapped and the bandwidth, Optus had 8x the bandwidth and was in range of two towers vs Telstra just 1.
I think you’re right tho, historically Telstra was the best for all regional locations so a lot default to Telstra like you say in #1
@original15: I think mskeggs point is that Government Blackspot towers can be shared by all providers.
But if the provider funds the tower build themselves, they can just tell the competitors to "rack off and build your own tower".
Exactly - it mostly depends on the precise location. If you are travelling remote (>500km from east coast), Telstra/Boost is undoubtedly better. If you are moving to a location, check their coverage map.
On Telstra I had full coverage where people next to me on Aldi had zero in a number of locations (far west NSW).
Yeah I'm in QLD, and if you travel further west than Roma, you better have Telstra. Sure you will get the other carriers in Longreach, maybe Charleville, etc, but the smaller towns are Telstra only. And the flat country gives surprising range out of those towns.
Telstra wholesale 4G speeds are slower even in cities. I went from Telstra to Aldi mobile and the speed is noticeably slower.
As far as I’m aware, boost uses Telstra’s full network, but they’re cheaper than Telstra. May as well go for them, I think their 200 dollar for a year plan is pretty good, it’s only 2 dollars more expensive per month than aldis cheapest plan.
This is about the network backhaul and the providers connection to the internet, not the wireless part of the link, but the outcome is the same for speed, but it isn't about having or not having coverage.
Telstra Wholesale coverage is designed to roughly match Optus coverage.
A few years ago, the difference in physical land area between Telstra and Optus coverage was around 2:1
Source otherwise I'm calling BS in this?
Well I'm not bothering trying to find the old reference cause it's old and out of date.
I reckon it was in a Finder.com.au or similar article where they referenced claims by Optus and Telstra on their land area coverage
But Telstra still claim pretty close to 2:1 today… and Optus coverage has improved over the years, so totally believable that it was 2:1 5-10 years ago.
Telstra - https://www.telstra.com.au/coverage-networks/our-network
"We cover more than 2.6 million square kilometres - that's 1 million square kilometres more than any other mobile network."
So Telstra are claiming at least 2.6:1.6 or 1.625:1
That makes sense. Cheers
Finder.com.au
Sounds like a whirlpool forum claim.
Anyway op you can get the wholesale coverage map here straight from Telstra itself
@MS Paint: The coverage is much larger, but only covers an additional 100,000ish people. It just covers lots and lots of nearly empty land.
@mskeggs: ie it's covering road networks where very few people live, between towns where most people live.
Telstra wholesale service is still superior, even in city areas.
I was with Lycamobile and currently Aldi when living in country/rural areas. The internet speed is definitely slower compares to Telstra/boost but not slow enough to switch providers
In the country, depending how far out you classify as country, you will get no coverage with anyone but Telstra and Boost.