Days after being hit with a potential multimillion dollar spectrum bill for 4G, Telstra is close to releasing their first 4G HTC phone with insiders admitting that the Company is also talking to Samsung about a new 4G model by the second quarter.
Gerd Schenkel, executive director, Telstra Digital has said that the release of the new phone which SmartHouse saw last year in Australia is close. Telstra’s Next G network runs on the 1800MHz spectrum band, while their 3G network runs on the 850MHz spectrum band.
Earlier this week the Federal Government advised Telstra and Vodafone that they expect both carriers to stump up $1.4 Billion to get access to new 4G spectrum.
According to sources the HTC 4G offering will be based on the HTC Sensation which comes with a 1.2GHz Dual-Core CPU while the new Samsung offering which could be based on the Galaxy S 3 which is believed to have a quad core 1.5 GHz processor as well as a brand new display screen. There is also speculation that Samsung will release a 4G tablet in 2012 and possibly their Notes phone which has already been launched in the USA.
Both the HTC and Samsung phone will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Late last year Telstra launched their Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile network which delivers 4G coverage in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin and Canberra. Primarily available in CBD districts the service is also available at airports and 50 other locations.