Lucky 888’s for Next G as Telstra prepares CDMA switch off?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 02 January 2008 21:10

Opinion and Analysis

Goldsworthy’s response is that: “The industry refers to this type of coverage as ‘fortuitous’ because it is not designed or planned and is dependent on a range of factors outside of Telstra’s control. Carriers cannot guarantee its availability or the quality of service it will deliver but often customers can attain a strong enough signal to make a call”.

He continues that: “My answer to this question is that while Telstra cannot guarantee fortuitous coverage will be identical on the two networks, it is expected that fortuitous coverage will be present on the Next G network in a very similar but not identical manner as CDMA”.
Goldsworthy also says that: “The [120,000km] drive tests have also enabled us to take people out on the road with us so we can show them first hand just how well the network is performing. So far we have been joined by politicians, journalists and customers, most of them Next G network sceptics, and everyone that has come on a drive test to date has been amazed at how well it stacks up against CDMA”.

So, unless the aforementioned new Minister for Censor-- oops, I mean, the new Minister for Communications, Senator Conroy, gives the CDMA network any kind of temporary reprieve, the switch off is coming in 25 days and a move to Next G – or another network with coverage in the area – is inevitable, if a mobile telephony service is desired.

Undoubtedly, black spots in coverage areas will be discovered, and some areas that previously had CDMA coverage but don’t have Next G coverage will be balanced out by many new areas receiving coverage for the first time.

If you find yourself a previous CDMA customer now with a ‘blue tick’ Next G phone appropriate additional antenna (if needed) and still lacking coverage, drive into a coverage area, call Telstra on 125111, and let them know – if a particular area could have better coverage and Telstra are getting a lot of feedback about it, it’s in their interest to fix it or to decide to invest in upgrading capacity in that area.

That’s especially so with competitors Optus and Vodafone racing to build their own national 3.5G networks set for completion by year’s end, albeit still set to be nearly 4% smaller and less than half as fast as Next G is today.

So, if you’re a CDMA customer who hasn’t switched, try to switch to your choice of carrier offering service in your area before the 28th of January, as waiting until the day itself will likely see delays in getting numbers ported across as the system gets flooded with requests from all those people who left it until the last day.

Switching off a network is never easy for carriers or customers, and while we’ve all legitimate complaints against Telstra for various reasons (not least of which is the pricing), the CDMA network transition seems to have been relatively smooth so far.

Let’s hope we can say the same when the switch off becomes official. Good luck – with or without the 888’s - to us all!