The first customers will get free data services – up to 1GB per day – for the first six months, the company has announced, but they won’t be able to use the network for ordinary voice, even voice over LTE (VoLTE). However there will be nothing to stop them using voice services over WhatsApp, Skype or other apps.
Executive chairman David Teoh said: “The TPG team has been working hard constructing our own network and I feel proud and excited to be introducing our very first on-net mobile product offering.”
After the first 1GB in any day, service speed will be capped at 1Mbps, said TPG, which said in April 2017 that it is spending A$600 million on building its network, having already spent A$1.26 billion on 700MHz spectrum. TPG aims to cover 80% of the Australian population, the company said last year.
Teoh said: “We are inviting users to register to experience our coverage and network performance as well as to take advantage of unlimited mobile data for free. This promotion is the first of its kind in Australia and signals a new era of competition in the mobile market and will undoubtedly bring great benefit to Australian consumers.”
COO Craig Levy said that at first the network will cover the central business areas and some suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Brisbane.
“The network rollout is ongoing and our mobile network coverage will increase significantly over time as we make the best use of our extensive fibre optic network assets,” he said.
TPG owns wholesale carrier AAPT and subsea operator Pipe Networks. Last year it announced it had won an auction to run a mobile service in Singapore – but there, according to reports earlier this year, it will launch with a free service available only to people over 65 and they will be limited to 3GB a month, not 1GB a day as in Australia.
