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Telstra has struck exclusive 5G deals with some of the "world's biggest brands", the telecommunications provider announced at CES – the Consumer Electronics Show taking place in Las Vegas.
As a result of the deals, the publicly-listed telco promised to deliver exclusive access to 5G commercial smartphones in the first half of 2019.
CEO Andy Penn said that customers in Australia would soon "exclusive access to 5G enabled devices", however he did not specify who the smartphones vendors are.
“The 5G revolution is now very real. More than 200 Telstra 5G mobile base stations are now online across the nation and our customers will very soon be among the first in the world to experience the possibilities this revolutionary technology can deliver,” Penn said.
Penn said Telstra have been working closely with numerous global manufacturing and industry partners to make this technology "real-world ready".
In December, Telstra said it had three base stations ready for its 5G services, two in Sydney and one in Melbourne.
This was after the company invested $386 million for 143 lots of 3.6 GHz band, giving it 60 MHz of 5G spectrum in Australia’s major cities and between 50-80 MHz of contiguous 5G spectrum in regional areas.
In late November, the telco also claimed to have achieved Australia’s first live 5G connection using a commercial 5G chipset on its mobile network, which was possible using a form factor device working with two of the telco’s network partners Ericsson and Qualcomm on the Gold Coast, in Queensland.
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