Having invested in a Samsung S4 4G smartphone, I thought it was time to review what the 4G experience was like. My intention is to test both Telstra and Optus 4G side by side.I decided to purchase my Telstra sim from a Woolworths retail store. My ID was checked as usual and the whole experience was quite easy 
really.Activating the sim card was a little harder however. This is the second sim I have activated with Telstra this year and the second time I have had to use the chat service to complete the activation. As I already have a prepaid mobile broadband sim card with Telstra for my iPad, I decided to activate under this account. Because I had logged into my account there did not seem to be any ID requirement. The activation request was sent almost instantly. The problem however was that almost as instantly, I received an email from Telstra advising that there would be delays in my activation. I waited 24 hours and nothing.I jumped online via the chat service and the young lady activated my sim pretty quickly. My ID was requested. Not sure why my activation was lost (no explanation was given).Once the activation came through, I inserted the sim in my phone and all was ready. Lucky for me my home (eastern suburbs of Melbourne) had 4G access and this appeared on my phone.
Coverage
Given 4G is still limited to Metro and inner city regions (see map) 4G across will cross over to 3G when it needs to. I experienced this in the train on the way to work in the morning. Now you see it now you don’t.
Speed Test
The difference between 3G and 4G speeds is significant. As an example, using my Optus 3G sim in my Samsung S4 can achieve a ping of 46ms, download speed of 4.70Mbps and 1.16Mbps upload. Using the 4G Telstra sim, I reached close to 20Mbps download and 3.5Mbps upload (3 – 4 x better). However, the results do bounce around from test to test, but the differences even at the lower levels are significant.
- Read the rest of the review at: http://prepaidplans.com.au/2008/07/telstra/
