Senator Stephen Conroy has expressed his satisfaction with the Telstra’s amendments to its Next G service, meaning the CDMA shut down is less than one week away and people are being urged to switch to the Next G network.
Customers that stay with CDMA after the network shutdown will not be able to use their phones.
Cowra Telstra phone dealer Greg Nichols said there was a rush of people before the first schedule shut down and he is expecting this to happen again.
“In January we changed over a lot of phones. Telstra will send a SMS to all CDMA phones reminding them of the shutdown.”
The reason the shutdown was delayed by three months was because Senator Stephen Conroy the Minister of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy stated the Next G coverage was not up to the standard of CDMA and therefore not able to be shutdown.
Three months on, Telstra has been working with the Minister and they believe they have it up to speed now.
“A lot of the problem was people were just walking in and
buying a phone, they were not buying like for like. For example if people were using an external aerial then they need to swap their new phone and make sure they have an external aerial. The most important thing is people need to swap like for like,” Mr Nichols said.
Telstra’s customer service and technical manager, Mick Downing said it is extremely important that people have the right handsets. “Telstra started marketing the Next G system before it was ready and with statements like ‘Coverage anywhere you need it’ and ‘Better than CDMA’ were proved to be false and people lost faith. Now we are up to the CDMA standard and it is actually a stronger signal than CDMA.”
Mr Downing agreed people need phones for different reasons. “Within the metropolitan areas there is not a problem and people don’t have to compromise or have high gain aerials, but in the bush people need a blue tick phone, which means it is best suited for the bush and people need a solid connection and a high gain aerial in their cars.”
Phones that are the most beneficial in country areas are the blue tick phones; Samsung A412, the LG TU500, the ZTE 158 and the ZTE 165. “People need to really ask lots of questions when buying a new phone and explain their intended use of the product,” Mr Downing said.
Telstra Country wide area manager Chris Taylor is confident the new system is equal to that of CDMA and if people are still having problems it could be due to the handset.
“The problems in country areas was the handsets, the network was fine. People need to get the right phone for their situation and now we have phones that are suitable for people living out of
metropolitan areas,” Mr Taylor said.
People with concerns are encouraged to call the special hotline help service 1800 888 888 to get their problems resolved before the old CDMA network is closed down for good on 28 April.
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