Lucky 888’s again: Telstra launches 1800 888 888 CDMA switchover hotline

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 21 January 2008 10:26

IT Industry - Strategy

Telstra are launching a new CDMA switchover hotline from Tuesday 22 January to help customers who are facing ‘genuine issues’ with handsets, equipment and coverage after having made the switch from CDMA to Next G, in response to a Government request to do more to help affected customers.

It’s nice to be a telecommunications company when you need to set up a consumer hotline, because you can ensure that you can choose the simplest and easiest number for customers to remember from the available pool of numbers.

That number, if you’ve read the headline, is 1800 888 888, and we’re likely to see it heavily reported in the media, presumably as a replacement for and/or in addition to the previously announced 125 111 number for reporting Next G difficulties.

Although Telstra says the number will launch tomorrow, we just tried calling it, and it worked, putting us through to a Telstra employee wanting to help with our enquiry.

Telstra says that ‘the Hotline was established in response to the finding by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, the Hon Stephen Conroy, that Telstra had met its commitment to customers to provide the same or better network coverage footprint on the Next G network as compared to CDMA but that he wanted Telstra to put in place extra measures to help customers with handset issues”.

Telstra noted that Minister Conroy said in his press conference on delaying CDMA’s closure that: “the Next G footprint is equivalent to the CDMA network” but that “in some cases, customers have purchased, or are purchasing, Next G handsets and equipment that do not provide equivalent coverage”.

Telstra’s release then noted that Minister Conroy made specific mention that “Telstra had been very active with customers affected by this situation and including exchanging handsets in genuine cases where this is required to give them equivalent coverage.”

This is good news for Next G customers who live in rural and regional areas that have purchased the wrong Next G handset, or haven’t purchased the right additional equipment to ensure reliable Next G coverage, and anyone affected is being asked to urgently contact Telstra on the new number.

Please read onto page 2 for comments from Telstra Country Wide's Group MD, Geoff Booth, who explains in greater detail why Telstra decided to set up the 1800 number.