SingTel Optus’s network managing director, Vic McClelland, has said that he expects the company’s 4G mobile network coverage to have caught up with that of rival Telstra by 2016, Telegeography.com has reported, quoting the Sydney Morning Herald. According to McClelland, by that time the infrastructure will cover around 98.5 percent of the population, and, “With the spectrum assets and site assets we’ve got I’m really confident that we’re able to catch up. We’re hoping to reach 90 percent of the population by March 2015 with 4G, a catch-up to Telstra. The next year [will see a rise], to 98 percent or 98.5 percent coverage.”

The operator’s current LTE-based services are around 75 percent of Australians in metropolitan areas while, by comparison, Telstra’s own 4G network covers 85percent of the entire population at the time of writing.