Telstra CDMA to Next G - free phones

Well, I committed to change over today - the incentive was a text message I got yesterday offering $100 credit to change, valid for a fortnight. Can't say I am enthused about the idea - I'd just as soon keep what I have, but they are closing the network so I have no choice.

Unfortunately, if you live or travel in rural areas, you have no choice who to use either - you're stuck with Telstra, and I think it unlikely there will be any real choice in the forseeable future (which may not be all that long in the mobile phone industry).

More when I get the phone and see how it goes.

John

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Unfortunately, if you live or travel in rural areas, you have no choice who to use either - you're stuck with Telstra

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considering no other company wants to know you, I would have thought country people would feel a little more gratitude :(


Bruce.

Having played with the Nokia PC Suite some more I think I'll pass on using it anymore. Other than backing up my contacts every now and again I think I'll just change my setting to mass storage device and use it that way.
I have used aftermarket software before instead of NPCS and it was much better to use. Maybe I should go that route again.

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Originally Posted by BMac

considering no other company wants to know you, I would have thought country people would feel a little more gratitude :(


Bruce.

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Gratitude ! :lol2:

If you'd been treated the way we have by Telstra, I don't think it's gratitude you feel.

BTW, check my other post. The smaller re-sellers want to lease the Next G network, as they currently do with the CDMA system, but Telstra is using it's market power and refusing access to 'secure' their customers.
As the numbers are only small the ACCC seems to be turning a blind eye to it.

Rick130, I am also with SCT and find them great, no monthly plan:) It stinks the Government has sold us out, I have to now go back to Telstra, most likely buy a new phone and then be locked into a plan, for what? my current phone is fine and so is the coverage.

Has anyone looked at the Kondinin group results of their independant test comparing Next G to CDMA, even the best Next G phone falls way short of CDMA in terms of coverage. My parents live closer to town than I and get CDMA all through the house. You can see the tower from the front door, a visitor was there the other day with Next G, NO COVERAGE inside at all.

Its going to be a monopoly and it stinks big time. When it gets switched off, I probably won't get another phone, I cannot afford one. We won't have coverage here and I am not going to pay a monthly fee for a phone I will hardly use.

So much for impoving telecommunications in the bush, all we want is a phone that works, not all this other BS that costs an arm and a leg to use and drains your battery in 5 minutes. If I want the internet I can use it at home. Thanks for nothing telsta, I even had to get Satelight Internet because our phone line is so poor:mad:.

Cheers all sorry for the rant, I just hate being ripped off.

It's interesting to read everyone's comments about CDMA versus WCDMA (Next G, but sorry, I don't buy into this "branding" BS) coverage; especially those extolling the relative merits of CDMA coverage.

I actually worked for Telstra MobileNet as a "phone chick" (custormer service rep) in between real technical jobs for 8 months at the time Telstra turned off the analogue (AMPS) network and turned on the CDMA network. I took lots and lots of calls from very angry customers who were saying the same things about CDMA coverage in comparison to their beloved analogue coverage.

I find it ironic now to read that customers everywhere want to keep the CDMA network running when, back in 2000-ish everyone was lining up to tell Telstra where they could shove their CDMA network - much as everyone is doing now with the WCDMA network.

The apparent poor coverage from the WCDMA network is rather surprising since it's using the same RF spectrum (850MHz), the same sites and, generally, the same antenna systems as the CDMA network. In fact Telstra have already installed a large number of additional sites in the attempt to bring the WCDMA coverage up to scratch, and are still getting a lot of flack so it's obviously not doing a lot of good. (I point this out, not so much in Telstra's defence as, simply from an RF tech's point of view, it doesn't quite make sense.)

I'm sure that in another 7 years customers will be extolling the virtues of the WCDMA network

One aspect which concerns me about the future of WCDMA coverage is that Telstra are promoting it as a high speed data network in rural areas (using UMTS with HSDPA), enabling "broadband" Internet coverage for the bush (without having to provide a dedicated broadband Internet service). This means that the WCDMA network capacity is likely to be soaked up by Internet traffic (downloading pirated music, movies and porn presumably - oops, sorry getting a bit cynical now) and phone communications usage may be compromised. Time will tell.

(UMTS = Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, HSDPA = High Speed Downlink Packet Access, and UMTS + HSDPA = the 3.5G System using W-CDMA as the underlying air interface, or transport layer if you like, which Telstra have branded "Next G").

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Originally Posted by BMac

considering no other company wants to know you, I would have thought country people would feel a little more gratitude :(


Bruce.

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Obviously you are not a Telstra customer - gratitude is the last thing that their compulsory customers feel.

Takes a year to get a phone line fixed, billing problems, refusal to answer letters, hours on the phone listening to muzak or being passed from one unauthorised person to another - I'm supposed to be grateful?

I see where you are coming from though - but looked at from another point of view, country people have put up with all sorts of innovations for years that were imposed to suit city dwellers (from protecting manufacturing industries to air pollution on gear on cars), so we feel that provision of basic services in return is a minimum. Just as an example - since governments are changing service delivery to assume everyone has broadband internet, it seems only reasonable to expect that we can get it. (e.g. NSW RTA now charges $25 for the road user's handbook, since it is available on the internet for free)

John

Grahame that's a very informative post thanks.
As mentioned before, the fact that WCDMA /Next g uses the same spectrum as CDMA seems to be part of the problem. They need to keep the power down on the Next G at the moment to stop it interfering with CDMA. The base station gear is mostly on the same sites. I have heard of contractors they have employed going around to the sites to try and stop the two interfering with each other. Another reason they are so keen to turn off CDMA altogether.

My favourite though is in two seperate conservation parks in the adelaide hills I couldn't call my Father in Law on his CDMA from my digital..... he had no service! (10 ft away!)

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Originally Posted by GrahamH

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1. I find it ironic now to read that customers everywhere want to keep the CDMA network running when, back in 2000-ish everyone was lining up to tell Telstra where they could shove their CDMA network - much as everyone is doing now with the WCDMA network.

The apparent poor coverage from the WCDMA network is rather surprising since it's using the same RF spectrum (850MHz), the same sites and, generally, the same antenna systems as the CDMA network. In fact Telstra have already installed a large number of additional sites in the attempt to bring the WCDMA coverage up to scratch, and are still getting a lot of flack so it's obviously not doing a lot of good. (I point this out, not so much in Telstra's defence as, simply from an RF tech's point of view, it doesn't quite make sense.)

I'm sure that in another 7 years customers will be extolling the virtues of the WCDMA network

2. One aspect which concerns me about the future of WCDMA coverage is that Telstra are promoting it as a high speed data network in rural areas (using UMTS with HSDPA), enabling "broadband" Internet coverage for the bush (without having to provide a dedicated broadband Internet service). This means that the WCDMA network capacity is likely to be soaked up by Internet traffic (downloading pirated music, movies and porn presumably - oops, sorry getting a bit cynical now) and phone communications usage may be compromised. Time will tell.
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1. The problem appears to be largely the same one that applied when CDMA was introduced - a new system, with little development history on the handsets, comparing with a well established system with well developed handsets. In other words, to put it simply, the best WCDMA handsets are only as good as the worst of the current CDMA handsets - if that, and as for the worst of the WCDMA handsets ........

Following bad publicity Telstra has now adopted the rather radical approach of recommending phones on the basis of where you live - most of the available handsets are "only suitable for use in town".

Certainly they use the same spectrum, the same antennae, and mostly the same transmitters - so the coverage ought to be the same - if you ignore the other end of the link. But of course you can't.

2. At present charges nobody except cost insensitive operations such as minesites are going to use the system for data, although the problem may well arise if Telstra succeeds in getting the government to subsidise their service where there is no landline broadband. This may well happen if their mates get in, and is presumably why they are pushing for a change in government. In any case, eventually competition in the cities is likely to drive down mobile broadband charges, and hopefully the same lower charges would apply everywhere.

Fortunately, my understanding is that the system is fairly scaleable, without having to necessarily make the cells smaller, by using more frequencies. But it is a concern.

John