Telstra has turned on its 1500th 4G base station as part of a billion dollar, nationwide program to extend 4G mobile coverage to 66 per cent of the Australian population by the end of next month.

Telstra’s Networks Executive Director Mike Wright said the milestone meant superfast download and upload speeds would be available for millions of Australians on Telstra’s 4G network.

Mr Wright said teams of technicians were working across the country installing the equipment to build out the country’s biggest 4G network.

“The program is now running at pace  and is on target – our technicians are now installing literally dozens of 4G base stations each and every week,” Mr Wright said.

“It’s great to mark the 1500th milestone but we’ve committed to installing over 2000 base stations by the end of this financial year and we’ll keep working to meet this target.”

Mr Wright said Telstra’s 4G network roll out program had extended coverage from 40 percent of the Australian population at the beginning of this calendar year to what is planned to be 66 per cent by the end of next month. This coverage is in all capital cities, and also over 100 regional and suburban locations.

“We now have over 2.1 million services connected to our 4G network and as the network grows we obviously expect that number to grow with it,” Mr Wright said.

“This network expansion involves a significant amount of complexity across our engineering teams and industry partners and is a great reflection on our capability which has delivered a new milestone every 12 months for the past 3 years,” Mr Wright said.