Building a Future Proof 5G Network

5G will reshape the globe, creating new opportunities for Government, Big and Small Business. Our Managing Director of Networks, Lambo Kanagaratnam tells us about how Optus is delivering a world-class 5G network.

How do you build a 5G network that will deliver on all the promises that this next generation technology says it can do? And how do you build a network that delivers for technologies that do not even exist today while still driving return on investment.

It’s a hard balance to get right – deliver a network of the future, but make sure customers can benefit from it today.

To start with, it’s important to cut through all of the hype surrounding 5G and remember what sits at the core of this wonderful technology - the customer.

We’ve taken a customer centric approach to our 5G rollout, making sure that customers have an authentic 5G experience. Do customers really benefit from a true 5G experience for 10 seconds when zooming past a 5G tower on the bus to or from work?

We don’t think so.

Before the ground was even broken for our first 5G site, Optus was focussed on introducing a new category to market, 5G Home internet. We knew it would take time for 5G to reach scale but wanted our customers to feel the benefits of 5G from the beginning. And this has served us well, with thousands of customers loving the super-fast download speed of 5G Home.

We have also been pushing hard, together with our technology partners, to create a network that utilises our assets to our advantage and delivers leading technology capability. For us it is about creating an authentic 5G network that takes advantage of the unique capabilities of 5G to deliver our customers what they need, where they need it. Every technological feat that we achieve on 5G serves a direct benefit to our customers – most notably speed and capacity.

Which is why we have been leveraging our mid-band spectrum assets, which provide an optimal blend of coverage, along with the benefits of higher band spectrum – speed.

And our customers are loving it.

While we deliver immediate 5G benefits to our customers today, we are actively testing 5G technologies with one focus area being latency sensitive services, which will be a key building block in enabling richer digital services such as digital payments, digital self-care and digital shopping as well as being a key building block to enabling more dynamic and integrated AR/VR experiences. We are also focused on seeing how we can push the network to allow on demand tailored services, that will ensure our network meets the varied needs of our customers into the future.

5G will reshape the globe, creating new opportunities for Government, Big and Small Business, which is why we’ve been vigorously testing the capabilities of mmWave over the last eight months.

mmWave is a 5G technology that is tipped to be critical in delivering a major technological leap across around the world. It will be the technology that sits behind and enables the likes of industrial automation, intelligent transport systems and the future of our healthcare system.

With such high stakes, we want to get it right and adopt an innovation mindset regarding 5G technology to learn what it is capable of and understanding any limitations.

The next 12 months is going to be a wild ride of 5G firsts and I for one am excited that I get to sit right up in the cockpit as we bring it all to life.