Australian operator Telstra has announced that it’s 4G coverage now reaching 85 per cent of the Australian population. The milestone was officially marked in Hamilton Island where the 3500th base station was switched on this week. 

According to operator, 1500 base stations were upgraded in the past six months in order to reach the ambitious 85 per cent target set in June when Telstra’s 4G coverage was at just 66 per cent of the Australian population. More than 300 regional towns now have access to 4G speeds.

With this expansion of the network complete, the Telstra's focus in 2014 turns to preparing the network with even faster 4G LTE-Advanced technology and deploying new spectrum to add more network capacity, speed and reliability.