30 day grace period for CDMA users to keep their number

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 10 December 2007 15:50

Opinion and Analysis

The reason why Telstra wants to get users on the Next G network is because it’s a modern, 3.5G network that offers a range of voice, video and data/Internet features at high speed, both on phones and with wireless modems plugged into desktop and portable computers, with whatever additional antennas may be necessary, giving rural and regional users the same kinds of phone and Internet services that city slickers take for granted.

Naturally, Telstra will save money by no longer needing to maintain two networks, and they’ll make money when they sell the network to, presumably, another country, but since the CDMA network is being switched off, we can only assume they will put the savings into continuing the fill the black spots and fixing problem areas as the Konindin Group reports. 

In response to this article, Telstra spokesperson Peter Taylor has advised that in September, Telstra announced that the Next G network now covers 400,000 more square kms than CDMA,  which was discovered after 120,000kms of driving around Australia, and contains other details of Next G's superiority over the CDMA network.

That said, there are clearly still blackspots, as you'd expect with any new system, and at least there is a third party out there reporting that Telstra is making progress in fixing problems.

On the Telstra Countrywide News page, the last release is dated the 4th of July, 2007, which I mistakenly assumed meant no more announcements had been made since, something that did surprise me, possibly having something to do with the Federal Election.

However since the original publication of this article (10 Dec 07), Telstra spokesperson Peter Taylor has advised that all of the major Next G announcements are made at Telstra's main Media Centre site, and not the Telstra CountryWide news page, which archives some of the major announcements but by no means included them all. Clearly there have been many, many announcements about Next G and other Telstra news before, during and now after the election.

Some of the Countrywide announcements detail the commencement of Next G coverage and coverage improvements in different areas, the installation of fibre optic products on the Gold Coast, and a ‘world first’ live 40Gbps optical transmission trial with Ericsson, among a range of other achievements.

In looking at the list, I’m even reminded that the Next G network holds the record of the world’s ‘longest recorded terrestrial call’ which Telstra says was made from a Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSO) situated some 154 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia, showing Next G’s power, while also showing that like any mobile network, it still needs to be thoroughly tuned for local topology and conditions, while covering much larger distances than the old CDMA network ever did despite the blackspots.

Unless the new Federal Government decides to issue some kind of edict to postpone the closure of the network, it seems certain the end of the CDMA era in Australia will fall on January 28, 2008.

So long, and thanks for all the phish!