Australian carriers Telstra and TPG Telecom announced a ten-year regional Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) commercial agreement.
Under the terms of the deal, TPG Telecom will secure access to around 3,700 of Telstra’s mobile network assets, increasing TPG Telecom’s current 4G coverage from around 96% to 98.8% of the population.
Meanwhile, Telstra will gain access to TPG Telecom’s spectrum across 4G and 5G, which will allow it to grow its network and increase capacity.
Under the MOCN arrangement, Telstra will share its Radio Access Network (RAN) for 4G and subsequently 5G services in the defined coverage zone. However both carriers will continue to operate their own core network infrastructure.
Telstra will also obtain access to and deploy infrastructure on up to 169 TPG Telecom existing mobile sites, improving coverage for TPG and Telstra customers in the zone.
Also, the non-exclusive agreement includes the option for TPG Telecom to request two contract extensions of five years each.
Telstra CEO Andrew Penn said: “This additional spectrum will mean that all Telstra customers will continue to experience Australia’s best and fastest network across the country, in combined 4G and 5G speeds. In particular, the spectrum agreement will ensure that regional and rural customers will now experience faster speeds in more locations on their mobiles.”
TPG Telecom CEO Iñaki Berroeta said the network sharing agreement would significantly expand TPG Telecom’s mobile network footprint in regional Australia and enable growth of its customer base in regional and metropolitan areas.
“It represents a material uplift in the capability of our network and will provide significant value for TPG Telecom shareholders over the medium and long term. We will be open for business in regional and rural Australia like never before, offering a 4G network that provides 98.8% population coverage and rapidly growing 5G coverage across the nation,” Berroeta said.
“With more people moving to regional areas as a result of COVID, congestion in some areas has increased. This additional spectrum will also ensure that Telstra customers will experience significantly reduced congestion at busy times,” Penn added.
“The deal will give TPG Telecom’s consumer, enterprise and wholesale customers seamless access to a national network. This will enable TPG Telecom’s Vodafone, TPG, iiNet, Lebara and felix brands to improve their services for regional Australians,” Berroeta added.
TPG Telecom said will continue to operate its own 3G, 4G and 5G networks in metropolitan areas reaching around 80% of the population, which includes its network infrastructure sharing arrangement with Optus in those areas.
Subject to approval by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the network sharing deal is expected to be available to TPG customers by the end of the year.
Telstra’s 5G network reached 77.5% of the country’s population as of the end of last year, Penn recently said in the company’s earnings release.
Penn added that Telstra’s 5G network was now more than twice the size of Telstra’s next nearest competitor. He added that a total of 2.8 million 5G devices were already connected to Telstra’s network.
