World's first 2Gbps capable data call achieved
Sydney, Sep 20: In a significant development, Ericsson, Telstra and Qualcomm have successfully completed the world's first 2Gbps capable 4G data call using the live commercial network in Queensland, Australia.
"Together with technology partners Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies, Telstra has made the world's first 2Gbps capable 4G data call using our mobile network in the regional centre of Toowoomba in Queensland," Channa Seneviratne, Executive Director, Network and Infrastructure Engineering -- Telstra Operations, said in a statement on Wednesday.
This call follows the 2Gbps speed demonstration at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February and the further testing in Sweden in June.
"This is the first time the technology has been taken out of the lab and deployed using a real commercial network," Seneviratne said.
The live call was achieved using Qualcomm Technologies' mobile test platform powered by the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem -- an Ericsson Radio System base-station Ericsson's Network Software and Ericsson core network.
Success in 5G will depend on a strong underlying 4G network, and this LTE data call over Telstra's live commercial network is an important step forward in the development of 5G.
"We expect to deploy 2Gbps enabled 4G technology in select locations later in 2018," informed Seneviratne.
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RBI keeps policy rate unchanged amid inflationary pressure
Mumbai (PTI): The Reserve Bank on Wednesday expectedly kept interest rates unchanged amid hopes of a global recovery on the back of ceasefire in the six-week-long US/Israel-Iran conflict.
The policy decision comes as a month and a-half-long West Asia conflict has disrupted energy supplies, shot up crude oil prices and created fiscal and inflationary pressures for import-dependent nations like India.
This is the first monetary policy review after the government announced a fresh inflation target for the RBI last month. The government has asked the RBI to maintain retail inflation at 4 per cent with a margin of 2 per cent on either side for another five years ending March 2031.
Announcing the first bi-monthly monetary policy for the current fiscal, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has unanimously decided to retain short-term lending rate or repo rate at 5.25 per cent with a neutral stance.
The rate cut pause comes on the back of the consumer price index (CPI) based headline retail inflation that moved closer to the RBI's medium-term target of 4 per cent at 3.21 per cent in February.
Additionally, the rupee has depreciated by over 4 per cent since the war, which has consequences for pushing up import inflation.
However, the rupee has appreciated by 50 paise to 92.56 against US dollar following announcement of the ceasefire by the US and Iran.
Based on the recommendation of the MPC, the RBI reduced the repo rate by 25 bps each in February, April, and December 2025 and 50 basis points in June amidst easing retail inflation.
India's retail inflation dropped to a historic low of 0.25 per cent in October 2025, marking the lowest level since the Consumer Price Index (CPI) series was introduced.
However, the rupee declined to historic low and crossed 95 against a dollar last month making imports costlier, raising fears of rise in inflation. Rupee touched a record low of 95.21 on March 30, 2026.
