Thread: Telstra CDMA to Next G - free phones

I was lucky enough to be picked, um volunteered, um told I was doing the CDMA replacement project at work.

We have about 450 CDMA phones and telstra have offered us the ZTE's free. We have another few hundred various CDMA devices to replace. The Nokia's are great phones but we have found them to have really poor reception, except when in a car cradle.

The LG's seem to be the best we have been offered for reception, but the car cradles aparently are cruddy and break on a regular basis.

The ZTE's have poor reception as well, and you have to plug in wires for the car cradle.

I am learning heaps!

Tell me more about the nokia cradles jsp?

Originally Posted by jsp

<snip>

The LG's seem to be the best we have been offered for reception, but the car cradles aparently are cruddy and break on a regular basis.

The ZTE's have poor reception as well, and you have to plug in wires for the car cradle.

I am learning heaps!

this is my information too.
LG seems to be the pick ATM for range if you really are in the country.

I have a samsung at the moment. I have had it for four years and find the user interface constantly infuriating. That's why I'd love to have a Nokia as their interfaces are normally pretty good.

Originally Posted by rick130

this is my information too.
LG seems to be the pick ATM for range if you really are in the country.

You are making me happy - I'm getting an LG!

John

Not much to say at this stage, the Nokia's would have been my pick as our GSM phones are standardized to nokia so I only have to deal with PC Suite, which is not great software anyways, we have about 1800 GSM handsets. But the nokia we have tested has REALLY BAD reception. We only want NextG handsets for "outback SA" use, otherwise we give them GSM phones.

The Nokia's have great recpetion when in a car kit, which uses an inductive loop for connecting the external areial. The car kit for them is the CK7W which I think has only been out a week or two.

The samsungs seem to be our users choice, but we have been told by some of the telstra techs they are so so on all reagrds. Just average.

The LG's aparently have a car kit breakage rate of about 35%, but have best reception as they have a good external antenna.

But the field guys are complaining they dont want flip phones they say they all break, and there is meant to be a ruggadized nextG handset comming out soon, I haven't seen it yet.


Also having fun trying to ake a standard for all the sat phones as well, hopefully the NEXTG coverage will improve and we can get rid of some of the sat phones.

Hmm, I'm going to leave it right till the death before getting a new phone.

Hopefully by January Telstra will be leasing the system to STC and they'll give me two new handsets to replace the Kyocera's we have now, and whatever I get I need the car kit to plug into the 6db gain antenna I have.
Surely the LG car kit can't be worse than the Kyocera ones ? I haven't had a working cradle for twelve months now after two died over an eighteen month period. Merely crappy connections in the cradle loom, but I had to buy a complete cradle assembly to fix it....

Originally Posted by rick130

Surely the LG car kit can't be worse than the Kyocera ones ? I haven't had a working cradle for twelve months now after two died over an eighteen month period. Merely crappy connections in the cradle loom, but I had to buy a complete cradle assembly to fix it....

The telstra guys and our installer guy says the LG cradles physically snap?

Car kits are a contentious issue at my workplace, half the rural guys say whats the point in having the phone if the reception is only good in the car with the external antenna plugged in as they can just be patched through the radio from the nearest office, and the phone is for the half the day they spend away from their car and thus radio. But the managers say EVERYONE must have a car kit for OHS reasons, even though most of the guys just have bluetooth thingo's.

Its all just here say. Please don't hold me to it.