Telstra seeds 42 Mbps modems with customers

Telstra had embarked on a program to "seed" the Ultimate USB modems it launched last month with about 120 enterprise and government customers.

The modems took advantage of a dual channel HSPA+ upgrade to the Next G network that boosted peak speeds on the Next G mobile network to 42 Mbps.

Maximum download speeds were expected to be around 20.1 Mbps.

The carrier said in August that it had begun selling its initial allocation of 2,000 modems through enterprise account managers.

The modems would be available through Telstra retail outlets from October 5.

Telstra enterprise and government executive director John Paitaridis told iTnews the telco was "progressing on a seeding campaign" for the new devices.

"We've got 120-odd customers that are trialling the device in terms of [it] working with their standard operating environment," Paitaridis said.

"We're getting very encouraging feedback in terms of the typical download speeds that they're experiencing."

Paitaridis also spoke briefly about the rise of Android devices in the enterprise and government division.

He said that consumer demand for Android devices was translating into demand among larger corporate and government customers.

"We've been providing BlackBerry services to our enterprise and government customers for many years and we've seen the iPhone come on very strongly now as a tool of choice for many enterprise and government customers," Paitridis said.

"Likewise, Android is starting to become a very popular [collection of devices] that enteprises, governments and business customers are taking on. Customers are requesting it."

Large-scale customers were using Android smartphones for corporate email and other applications, he said.