Queenstown becomes New Zealand’s first town with 4.5G – enabling fastest mobile speeds in the country

Date:

Jun 21, 2017

Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Jim Boult welcomes the announcement by Spark that Queenstown has become the first town capable of getting the fastest mobile data speeds in the country.

Queenstown CBD, Frankton, Arrowtown, and some areas in between are all covered by the next-generation network as 4.5G was switched on yesterday across five mobile towers in the area.

Mayor Boult says he is delighted the community will have access to the new network, with much faster speeds and greater capacity, giving visitors and residents better connectivity.

“Deploying 4.5G to Queenstown sends a clear message that we are a future-focussed town open for business and ensures the network infrastructure is able to support our growing population.  

“Spark states that Queenstown is one of the busiest sites for data usage in the country with over 53 terabytes of mobile data used in the region in May. This clearly identifies that we have a huge demand for a reliable network.”

4.5G can deliver up to three to five times more speed and capacity than 4G from a single mobile tower to compatible devices.

ENDS

Note: The upgrade is future-focussed and puts the Spark network slightly ahead of devices, with no commercially available modems or phones supporting the entire range and combination of 4.5G features at the moment. However, most new high-end phones support many 4.5G features, which propels their speeds to between three and five times faster than regular 4G.