Telstra's 5G footprint now covers 50% of Australians, the company says

Over half of Australians now live in Telstra's 5G coverage footprint, the company announced today.

The milestone marked a 'huge step forward' for Telstra's 5G roll out, says Telstra network technology development - solutions executive Channa Seneviratne, and was a significant stepping stone on the path to its target of providing coverage for 75% of the country's population by the middle of the year.

"Our customers have told us coverage is the most important thing when it comes to 5G so Telstra's 5G roll out reaching more than half of the Australian population is a huge milestone," says Seneviratne.

"Bringing Telstra 5G coverage to more people means they can get more out of their 5G device and really experience what 5G has to offer.

Seneviratne says achieving 50% total coverage was no ordinary milestone.

"When you look back just a couple of years to see where we've come from and now to the huge 5G network construction project we're getting on with," he says.

"We've made great progress but there's still more work to do, which is why we've set our teams aggressive roll out targets to bring Telstra 5G to 75% of the Australian population by the end of June this year.

Seneviratne says Telstra has expanded its 5G network coverage to 'even more areas' of Australia's largest cities, regional centres and country towns.

"We now have Telstra 5G coverage in selected areas of more than 100 cities and towns, including major regional centres in every state including Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Geelong, Mt Gambier, Launceston and Busselton so our customers can get Telstra 5G in more places.

The company says it already has more than 750,000 5G devices on its network and is adding thousands of new 5G devices every single week as more customers take up new devices.

Telstra 5G sites now number over 2,650 around Australia, in addition to coverage in more than 100 cities and towns and more than 2,000 suburbs across Australia with selected areas of Telstra 5G coverage.

The milestone comes only two weeks after Telstra announced its multi-year contract with Motorola Solutions to build a government radio network in Tasmania.

The two companies will provide Tasmania's emergency responders and government organisations with a highly advanced, statewide mission-critical communications network to respond to emergencies effectively, Telstra said.

The innovative network will be built on a feature-rich technology platform to provide various additional capabilities for today and the future. These include broadband push-to-talk services enabling seamless communication between radios, smartphones and other devices as well as enhanced integration between existing communication centres' operating systems and Motorola Solutions' consoles.