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Telstra used the Mobile World Congress to announce a string of upgrades to its core optical network, boosting its fibre network and introducing new software solutions to develop its recently announced “network of the future”.

The initiative is part of a $3 billion investment the telco has committed over the next three years after its network has been plagued with a string of embarrassing outages in 2016.

The rise of 5G and the move towards a highly interconnected device ecosystem referred to as the IoT have been major themes at this year’s event which brings mobile operators together from all over the world, and Telstra is keen to lead the charge in Australia.

This week it reaffirmed its strong relationship with network provider Ericsson which will supply and integrate solutions to help Telstra handle greater traffic, paving the way for more bandwidth and laying the foundations “to enable 5G,” Telstra says.

Eventually it will allow Aussie consumers to get much higher data limits and dramatically faster mobile downloads but Telstra CEO Andy Penn doesn’t believe Australian providers will follow the US in offering unlimited mobile data plans.

In addition to ushering in new applications, Telstra says the network upgrades are about preparing for greater levels of media consumption on portable devices.

“We expect five times the traffic growth to hit our network in the next five years and we expect that to be 80 per cent from media,” Telstra’s network boss Mike Wright said.

Telstra CEO Andy Penn doesn’t believe Australian providers will follow the US in offering unlimited mobile data plansSource:The Australian

Telstra is also deploying LTE-Broadcast (LTE-B) to be launched later this year and rolled out nationally in 2018 to improve the mobile video experience of customers using Telstra’s media services.

It mean users will get a constant bit rate data channel regardless of how many subscribers are watching a particular broadcast, ensuring better picture and audio quality.

The advent of 5G will allow for a greater media experience on mobile devices, but more significantly it will provide more network capacity and dramatically reduce latency which will be crucial for applications such as interconnected autonomous cars, for example.

“(Less) latency is probably one of the biggest dynamics in the world of the Internet of Things and one of the biggest dynamics that 5G will achieve,” Mr Penn said.

On the Gold Coast later this year, Telstra will conduct trials of 5G new radio (NR) technology as part of a “big step forward to 5G readiness.”

With steady advancements in the 4G technology there has been some question over whether 5G is actually needed any time soon but Telstra is not only keen to ensure its network is prepared, it also wants to be in a position to influence the global standards of the technology to ensure it is workable for the Australian environment.

“We’re very pleased by how open the standards groups have been to the recommendations from our team,” Mr Wright told journalists in Barcelona.

A 5G Connected car produced by Ericsson, SK telecom and BMW/ AFP PHOTO / Josep LagoSource:AFP

Earlier in the week Telstra also revealed it had completed the rollout of Ericsson’s IoT network software and is trialling “category M1” to increase it IoT ecosystem, roughly a year after it enabled support for connecting ultra low power IoT (category 1) devices on its LTE network.

The internet of Things could add $120 billion to Australia’s GDP value by 2025, Mr Wright said.

“We’ll only begin to discover what we can do in the next few years.”

The Erricsson booth at MWC showcased the early functionality of Telstra’s new category M1 trials which consisted of deploying “yield sensors” at a winery in Tasmania which carried out “real time telemetry” of conditions such as temperature, soil moisture and solar radiation.

It might seem strange for your average Telstra customer to hear about the company essentially connecting grapes in Tasmania given that many have had to endure frustrating network outages in recent months. But for the country’s legacy provider, it’s a way to put pressure on its competitors and maintain its national dominance as it helps usher in the new generation of wireless technology.

In September Telstra and Ericsson conducted the first public demonstration of 5G while Vodafone and Optus have also been spruiking their efforts in the area in recent months.

This week, Optus announced it teamed up with Huawei to successfully complete trials of new technology to “lay the foundation for the upcoming 5G.”

The author travelled to MWC as a guest of Oppo