Telstra has officially launched LTE services in central business districts of the capital city and more than 30 regional and metropolitan centres. The company says that typical download speeds come in between 2 Mbps and 40 Mbps and typical upload speeds are 1 Mbps to 10 Mbps. The company also announced that it would launch 4G services in more than 50 additional locations by year-end. The official launch of the services follows Telstra's switch-on of the first 4G base stations using LTE technology in May and a commercial pilot of 4G services for business customers last month. Telstra is giving its BigPond 4G USB modem to consumers free with a AUD 59.95 per month plan that comes with 8 GB of data on a 24-month contract. Business customers can get the modem free on a AUD 39 per month Telstra Mobile Broadband Standard Plan over 24 months with 4 GB included data. Telstra further announced plans to launch its first LTE smartphone in the first half of next year. The phone is made by HTC and is codenamed 'HTC 4G'.
