While phone manufacturers and Microsoft are getting all the Mobile World Congress love from the US, the little Aussie Telco that could, Telstra, has been making some pretty big announcements of its own from Barcelona. The Telco has announced that starting February 23 and rolling out over the next two months or so, they'll be launching a new wireless internet modem and offering 21Mbps wireless data speeds through NextG. That's about the same speed as ADSL2+.

Before you get overly excited though and rush out to your nearest TLife store, credit card in hand and a sheepish grin covering your face, know that as with all quoted broadband speeds, you're never going to actually hit 21Mbps - you'll be looking at a figure more like 8Mbps. And until April, the 21Mbps modems will only be available to some business customers, so if you just want to be able to browse Giz on the train all over the country for your personal gratification, you'll have to stick with the slower speeds for now.

Still, the fact that Telstra has pushed this out, (and claims that NextG will hit 42Mbps by the end of the year) is actually really impressive. It's almost painful to say, but the Big T is really leading the world when it comes to 3G and LTE mobile networks. So, Kudos, Telstra.

Now, if we can just do something about pricing...

Story from Gizmodo Australia