Conroy seeks input on CDMA closure

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 05 February 2008 09:55

IT Policy - Regulation

Communications minister, Stephen Conroy, has written to a number of industry organisations inviting them to a meeting to discuss the impending closure of Telstra's CDMA network. Conroy says he envisages that the meeting "will allow Telstra to provide relevant information to organisations and for you to raise with Telstra any issues concerning the transition."

Conroy issued a determination of 17 January 2008 preventing Telstra from going ahead with its plans to close the CDMA network on 28 January. The ACMA audit of Next G coverage, on which the minister's decision was based, found that the Next G footprint was equivalent to the CDMA network and that Next G coverage using an external aerial was equivalent to CDMA. But it found that many Next G handsets did not perform as well as their CDMA counterparts.

Also, according to Conroy, "a shopper survey indicated that some customers have not received appropriate advice from Telstra and Telstra licensees on Next G handsets which they required to enable them to purchase a handset suitable for their needs to access Next G services and obtain coverage."

Telstra has since embarked to two initiatives aimed specifically at this problem: it has appointed 57 "specially trained Coverage Advocates...to help customers move from the old CDMA network and ensure they have the right handsets and equipment to do it seamlessly." In some cases it is offering free replacement handsets: those with the blue tick signifying better than average performance. It is also monitoring the network to identify those users whose calls appear to be dropping out frequently and contacting them to discuss the problem.

However at the same time that it announced this initiative, it defended the performance of its handsets, saying: “all handsets that Telstra sells, for use on any of our networks, have passed rigorous testing, meet established international performance standards, and provide coverage within mapped coverage areas.”

Conroy said in the letter that "Telstra has advised that it will confirm before the end of March that it has addressed all identified issues, to ensure the network can be switched off by 28 April 2008 provided that I am satisfied of equivalence. I anticipate receiving a report from Telstra that comprehensively addresses my concerns and consumers should act on the basis that the CDMA network will be switched off."

Meanwhile, Telstra's regulatory chief Phil Burgess, delivering the inaugural Telstra-sponsored Foreign Correspondents' Association Newsmaker Luncheon on the subject of "Cleaning up the climate change debate - how telecommunications permits a shift from accounting to conservation" could not resist another dig at the government over its refusal to permit the network to be closed down. He reminded his audience that the operation of a mobile network consumes a large amount of energy, thus contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.