World's fastest network kicking off Down Under

The world’s fastest mobile network is set to go live in Australia from next year, with the country’s incumbent operator Telstra promising speeds of 21Mbps next year and 42Mbps by 2009 from its Next G network.

The carrier says it already shares top spot in the speed stakes with Singapore’s Star Hub with a downlink of 14.4Mbps. Interestingly, it seems there might be a correlation between speed and data consumption – according to Telstra, its revenues from non-SMS data are now beating those from SMS.

The only downside of having a super-fast network is that the mobile phones aren’t keeping up in speed terms. Hopefully device will take it as their cue to get some rapid handsets on the market in time for Telstra’s new network – and hopefully with some new services too.