cdma coveridge

My brother recently bought an LG CDMA phone, and we find the same thing.... Quite often my Nokia digital phone will have full coverage, and his will only have one or two bars, and sometimes i will have good reception when he will have none..... I think his is on a telstra plan, so it isn't related to one particular network. But what i will say is that the cdma has brillint voice clarity when it has range, where the digital tends to break up a little, even though it says it has two bars of reception. At this stage, i don't beleive a mobile phone of any description is really any good in the sticks, thats the territory of HF radios and satphones.
So dont worry mate, your not alone.
Tristjo

My wife has a Hyundai CDMA through Orange - noticed voice quality on Orage cells is not as good as when roaming to Telstra cells. I've had a Qualcomm CDMA phone through Telstra since 1st week of CDMA operation in Australia, found coverage to be excellent. There is no GSM coverage in many rural NSW areas, only CDMA - there are coverage maps on Telstra web site for GSM and CDMA services. "Signal strength" bar graph on phone is actually a combination of received signal strength and bit error rate. Voice quality is still good with no bars in graph, unlike GSM which will be dropping bits of call.

G'day

I've had telstra CDMA for 2 years now and am quite happy with it.

I live in a rural area, and whilst you are never going to get full coverage in this big brown land, I have found that it is far better than GSM

Last year when travelling the Queensland outback in company with some friends we noticed that we were back in coverage long before they were on their GSM.

In one instance [coming into Cloncurry from the Gulf] we were in cover almost 30km out, and they did not come into range until about 10km out of "The Curry"

enjoy the bush

DennisN

Brian

My wife bought one through Telstra, she has noticed no difference in the city than her old digital phone. (Not that she was looking)

We were in Oxley wild rivers at christmas and the coverage of the CDMA phone in the bush compared to my digital was quite amazing.

Obviously it will not as good as sat phone etc but for what it is, it went well in the areas we were in.


Lloydy

Off to Accessorise some more

Brian, Once you're in the bush/outback you don't have a choice, so CDMA it is. I can't really comment in a comparison between the 2, as we have only CDMA. The coverage from Winton to Brissy has improved to the point where there is only a few kms between each town, where coverage is down. Of course this is with a 900mm aerial on bullbar. The system gets our vote, until satphones come down in price, or we decide to crank up the HF again.

Don't know if it is still the case, but some of those other GSM carriers didn't work, in places like Longreach. The case may be changed now. From light aircraft, one make CDMA calls in some amazing places, hundreds of kms from nearest cell. Not a popular activity with the powers that be. Hooroo...

Brian, I have also just purchased a Nokia CDMA on a Telstra Plan for use in country areas. So far I have found that once out of major cities, coverage seems more extensive and signal strength definitely better between urban areas. I have had several instances of zero GSM coverage at spots in SE NSW and NW Victoria where CDMA still worked

Not sure whether this is relevant to your case, but I have set up to use the Infrared capability of the phone as a modem for my Notebook PC so I can send/receive e-mail. Whilst the GSM network operates at about 9600 bps transmission speed, the CDMA is connnecting at 28,800bps!

I know these connection speeds are not always right, but a timed test showed a significant lift in trasmission speed through CDMA.

I am currently investigating the option of CDMA over GSM for a round Australia trip. Along the eastern coast, CDMA and GSM generally has the same coverage, and some GSM coverage along the highways might be better as it has been around for longer and CDMA is still being expanded.

However, once you leave the east coast and go inland, or around the rest of Australia, CDMA is by far the best. When I looked, between Cairns and Katherine, Telstra GSM is not available, where as CDMA there are about 4 base stations.

Another thing to consider as well (to which I think has previously been mentioned) you don't necessarily need bars/signal indicators on your CDMA phone to actually have coverage (according to Telstra CountryWide CDMA documention). So you may be experiencing areas of CDMA coverage but it just doesn't show up!

There is also a new high speed data service available on the CDMA network in metro Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, with speeds of up to 150kbps! And you are connected all the time so you don't have to worry about dialling up all the time.

The catch? It's not in regional areas, you need a compatible handset, only available through Telstra CDMA (as far as I know) and it can be pricey. 10kbs of data costs 20cents. So a 1 megabyte photo would cost $22 approx. to download!

However, dialing up using Telstra's Mobile Internet (only available from Telstra GSM and CDMA) connecting at 14,400bps on a CDMA phone and getting the maximum speed, that 1 meg file would cost about $2 off peak! or on GSM at 9,600bps at maximum speed would cost about $3 off peak (this is a rough estimate not taking into consideration network congestion, signal strength, my brain strength, any extra call costs, etc) Dialling 0418707638 you pay 16.5cents per 30secs 7am to 7pm Mon-Fri, and 8.25cents per 30secs all other times plus 22cent flagfall.) It's just a little slower thats all.

Visit for more info http://www.telstra.com.au/mobilenet/services/mobilint.htm.

And thats about it! Remeber, please check out all of the information first before really taking any of my information seriously, as I could be wrong!

Hi Brian,

I'm sure you've received enough answers but for your info, I live in the midwest gascoyne and with the car kit installed including the external aerial I get range 70kms from the repeater in my local town. It's actually more effective then the mobile HF which is linked to a frequency back at the townsite. Obviously there's a black spot for HF's over this relatively short distance but the CDMA makes up for it. I also heard a little rumour that eventually CDMA will take over digital coverage all together and the same thing will happen all over again as with the analogues but I never said that.
CJ

CDMA -no matter what anybody says- aint what it should be! Yes it's better in the bush but that's because GSM is designed not to work beyond about 10Klms from a station. GSM was designed for urban areas specifically europe.
With a masthead antenna on my boat plus all the right gear it still does not match what my old hand held Nokia Analogue could do!!!
We got sucked in with the whole setup!!!

Hi Brian, my wife and i got a Telstra, Samsung CDMA phone each, at the top of our property there is a GSM tower, we always got full signal all the time with GSM, With our new CDMA phones sometimes drops out, fuzzy, sometimes like someone is belting a 44 gallon drum. The clarity is awful. You can be standing in one spot and the signal goes up and down and usually drops out, My wife complained to Telstra , they want to lend her another phone and go that path,BUT its the system, its substandard and i think we have been sucked in to it.Orange is promoting the same tiny Samsung phone with no indication that it is CDMA, Its criminal really. mIchael

Buy only a Quality handset and connect it to Telstra with a 900mm antenna and you won't look back. (love mine!)

Theres enough misinformation here to sink a battleship.
1.Both GSM and CDMA are digital systems.
2.Orange do not have a CDMA system.(They use Telstra).
3.Telstra will continue to expand CDMA to include most towns with population over 500 (Gov inititive).
4.GSM (Telstra) coverage is not expected to grow.
5.GSM has a maximum range of approx 34km - Ericsson are working to increase this but havent heard anything lately.
6.CDMA has no limit in range hence use of the highly illegal boosters to obtain signal. Unfortuneately these same boosters stuff up the system for all users when used close to tower.
7.Towers can be designed to radiate along highways with little service to the sides,hence reports of poor coverage close to tower.
8.Mobile phone coverage is available to approx 96% of the population but only 4-5 % of the landmass.
9. The decision to close the analogue network was a political decision and not Telstra's and believed to be a condition of Optus and Vodaphone entering the GSM arena.Telstra purchased the licence for the old analogue frequencies for its CDMA Network. CDMA technology evolved after the decision to go GSM.
10. If Analogue was still here it would not be able to handle the volume of traffic now experienced.

Enough?
The systems not perfect but is the best there is for now.
PS I work for a country based communications company and have heard most of the fact and fiction going around.

Cheers

I've got Orange CDMA and just for interest on coverage up at Cape York - I could call out at Weipa, just south of Archer River roadhouse, Chill Beach, Bamaga and Punsund Bay. This was back in Aug/Sept last year.