"The company is now claiming it never intended to switch off the older technology until the new had the same coverage anyway, so the minister's new license conditions are redundant."

That's like watching my neighbor's cat fall out of a tree, bounce off the roof of their car on to the hood (bonnet) and slide off on to the driveway. Then stand up and look at us as if saying "I meant to do that, I've been working on it all week".

Their only real concern was probably the realization that they couldn't charge the new 3G customers enough to make up for all the customers they'd be losing.

AT&T just switched all of their customers to GSM about a year ago. Of course, by then their GSM coverage was actually better. But 3G is localized. That's probably the reason that the iPhone (got it in there) is only 2.5G. But they're really pushing 3G phones.

Not only is the original article wrong (telstra has always maintained that the CDMA network wont switch off until there is equivalent coverage to CDMA) but the first comment is a fabrication as well. The current NextG network covers the whole GSM footprint + the whole CDMA footprint - 1.9M km^2. There are still localised issues - the network is only 10 months old but in general it is already larger than the existing CDMA and GSM network. And it has downlink speeds of 14.4Mbps and uplink of 1.9 Mbps.

I wish they'd just hurry up and do it. As crap as it is that they decided to turn CDMA off, most companies and persons have already changed their plans to suit 3G... And rural areas are getting screwed around the most with this.

But then again, it's always good to see Telstra get foiled. ;)

The big T have always argued that the CDMA network had to die for 3G, because they were using the same spectrum ... this won't make them happy.

A Telstra puff-piece, posted anonymously. Well, *that's* going to change my mind...

I have a friend that works for an energy provider who tells me that a large part of their rural monitoring and data acquisition is done by CDMA. One would hope that they get this migrated before telstra pulls the plug, or else telstra might find the plug pulled on them!

Telstra was initally forced to stop the roll-out of CDMA by Helen Coonan and the Howard Government years ago when when Optus and Hutchison "wanted" 3G. They claimed they couldn't compete with the infrastructure installed by Telstra in the "bush" and wanted to sell 3G (a new network) in in the cities and wanted Telstra to pay for it.

This current governments record on communications is woeful! When you have a Prime Minister who can't even pronounce "ADSL2" and "Fibre Optic" it's not looking good.

and lets not even talk about the Broadban situation! the government "found" half a billion dollars for the G9 consortium that was not included in the intial documents....

Oh and the last pearler! The govenment sold Telstra for 65 million dollars lock, stock and barrel and are now claiming they still "own" the infrastructure! Which is why they are lossing in the High Court. They are NOT a government department anymore, they are owned by the australia people. Telstra should be run under the same rules as everyone else and should be due the same preferential treatment which Optus is getting. (BTW Optus is owned by Singtel 51%) Who is owned in turn by the Son of the Prime Minister of Singapore. Anyone else have a problem with our commications network being owned by a Dictatorship which pretends toward democracy?

get educated people!!! seriously!

back in january.

I had to swap it for a Next G piece of crap with less functionality (but more colours on the display) - that doesnt work/receive/whatever out where I work .. "outback" Australia. I fired up my old CDMA set recently, and it still does more of what I want than the new POS.

And with Telstra still refusing to wholesale NextG, I think they should be forced to keep CDMA on anyway.

I know quite a number of people who have/had CDMA phones on plans from other providers. They have 2 choices now.... GSM (limited use in country areas) or switch to Telstra. Pretty lame choices.

When will Telstra grow up and realise that more money can be made by simply working with their biggest customers (other providers)?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22200086-7582,00.html

Regardless of anonymous folk who think your comments are right or wrong, thanks for giving me the best laugh of the week so far with the cat story :-)

Telstra's GSM service is insufficient in many areas that CDMA still works fine in, NextG is a joke by comparison. I have various kinds of phones on various networks and CDMA still remains superior for more remote locations inspite of what the sales person on the phone tried to tell me when telling me to drop my CDMA account and go over to GSM/NextG with it, a combined CDMA/GSM phone is currently best where the option to use it exists.