CDMA to Next G

George this has been discussed a few times already, I would suggest an archive search on say Next "G" and have a read.

George,
THis was covered about a week ago in detail. I checked at that time and Ihave decied to keep my two CDMA's a bit longer. If your's has packed it in it may be opportune to update. My reason for not changing is mine is that it has a car kit, and my wifes is an $800 new phone and the only two available at the moment are $400.
Not worth it for me.
Steve

I am keeping my CDMA for as long as i can. The only phone for nextG that are available now are the fancy ones with internet, TV, and the rest of the bells and whistles. If you want a basic phone then i think you will have to wait a bit longer.

There are shiploads on Ebay.

Buy a cheapy to get you through until 2008 when CDMA is turned off.

Hi George,

Yes I definately have had experience with Telstra's Next G phones. They are all singing, all dancing, and as a phone, bl**dy useless!

Have a CDMA phone at work with service, but not a signal with the Next G! It appears that not all CDMA tours have been converted to Next G yet, and Mr Telstra hasn't got any idea when the CDMA towers in my area will be converted, just sometime in the near future. I was assured before my contract purchase that it would work in the arean I specified (Hayes, Tasmania, just 40km west of Hobart), but not a hope in hell!

You really must do your home work well before dealing with Next G at teh moment!

Cheers!

George,

Try here
and
here
and
here

Got my first offer from Telstra to move my Prepaid CDMA to NextG on a plan with free phone. Current setup works fine so I'll wait and see.
The coverage maps show a wider range from the towers for Next G compared to CDMA however I understand this won't won't be fully operational for a while.

Keep the old one as long as possible next g or will not have same coverage until 2008 and thats what telstra told me.
A mate and I were side by he used to have cdma now has next g used to get reception now nun but I still had it will my as the kids call it brick cdma.

All the best
Eric

I am told that NextG transmission is only operating at low power at the moment. The transmission strength will be increased closer to the time of changeover.

Just buy a second hand CDMA on ebay and wait till things get better

Dunedigger

Thanks Cruiser, DD, Eric, David, Richard, PC and Barnesy.

That sounds like a plan - ebay here I come!

George_M

Well buggered if I know what some people are whinging about. I have used one of the fancy I-mate next G phone/pda and in pretty much all "towns" west of the great divide (that I have travelled in) it seems to work fine. Very fast and for a tech idiot like me, very simple. I will be getting another one real soon (life saving accident meant mine is now $tuffed) I am that impressed with it.
Towns along the Newell, New England, Pacific and Bruce highways have all been good for me to connect to net and recieve calls. I was on digital before this so maybe my expectations of phone coverage are not as high as other cdma users???

Cheers Trevor.

George I thought that we need to be objective about the answers so I looked at the coverage maps for CDMA and NextG for a near outback town. I thought why not Leigh Creek in South Australia where the signal runs out at Lyndhurst at the start of the Strz Track.

The below maps are an indication only as Telstra provided the information after all. The lake at the top left is Lake Eyre South and of course Lake Eyre, the lake mass below is Lake Torrens northern end.

If I get the maps right there is a distinct advantage with NextG according to Telstra information.

Our CDMA phone will be available with two car kits for a pretty low rate. Open your bidding, one very good Qualcomm, only seven years old. They built em well!

you can have my Kyocera KX160 and charger for $30 including the charger and postage if you want ... Telstra just upgraded me for nix ... (after overcharging me)

George, i work up the north west of WA on a vessel out from Onslow. I have had my trusty CDMA work very well out there and still does. Some engineers are working out there on a jack up barge and they have 3 "nextG" phones with them and they are useless to them. They suggested i hold onto my CDMA until the last minute. Telstra do not seem interested in whether they are working out there or not. Try e-bay for a CDMA to get you through until 2008.

I travel western NSW and nort west Victoria for work and can say (quietly as I can, I hate praising Telstra) that the service from Next G is very good compared to CDMA even without a car kit, that is equal to CDMA phone in an inductive aerial carkit (nokia)
With a proper plug in antenna it will be excellent coverage I expect. There are areas where you are still using std GSM or "G" towers but not very often.
The LG handset however I dont like at all, does strange stuff, call volume changes regularly, poor battery life, gets very hot when charging and using at the same time, cant get a carkit or aerial patch lead for it yet.
It will be going back becfore long but other options dont seem much better
Regards
JR

George

Telstra are offering upgrade deals from CDMA to Next G at the moment.(there is a specific link on the web site) A new handset on a 24 month plan is included in the call costs so don't feel the pain of dishing out big $$$. You also get a FREE wireless earpiece or wireless car kit..if you ask for it.

I just ordered mine today on a business plan. I thought the deals were very good.

Check out the Telstra shop on their web site.

see how you go.

hi, i just got put onto a plan with my new cdma three days before i found out about the change over- not happy, telstra said they didn't know anything until the day that we all found out about the end of cdma (like i really believe that) anyway, as my phone is still working well i'm a bit unsure as what to do, i don't want to miss out on this free phone change over but aren't ready to throw my cdma in the bin, does anyone know how long this change over goes for as telstra just says they don't know how long it will run for.
and for those of you not on cdma the telstra shop will look at changing over the other sort as long as they are under 18 months old you just need to ring them.
good luck with it all.

I have a very old LG CDMA phone. Did not use it for several years while Overseas, but resurrected when back here, only for use when I am out of range of GSM. I use pre paid. Work supplies and pays for the GSM so I prefer to use that. I have a parrot Blutooth kit in the car for the GSM.

have letter from Telstra last night about up grades to Next G.

Now the question - will the next G work with the Blue tooth parrot set up?

Bruce

Hey George,
My wife hsa just bought a new nextg phone and i'll tell you it eats my cdma (Nokia) phone. we travel to western nsw and qld for work and so far have been nothing but impressed. Only problem is the number of handsets available. Two to three weeks ago there were only 4 phone models to chose from. Now there is around 6 to chose from , but still no Nokias! No doubt this number will increase in the next few moonths/ weeks. I contacted Nokia for their plans of releasing a nextg handset and their reply was less than satisfactory, saying they did not know if Telstra was going to incorporate Nokia phones in their network plan. Who knows? As far as the network itself though it is awesome. Regards

We dropped in to check out a change to G3, but decided to hold on a while.

Main reason (apart from uncertainty over coverage) is that we could not get a Nokia as a 'free' changeover phone. Wife particularly wants to stick with Nokia as they are very user friendly (means we know how to use them). When we've had others (Motorola for eg) we have found them a PITA to use.

Thanks to all of you who replied to my post.

I found the information very helpful.

Thanks to the joy of ebay I've found an identical CDMA model which is therefore compatible with my existing car kit.

Now to sit back and wait for a better range of Next G handsets and peripherals, and for Telstra to try to "incent" me to move to the Next G network.

Thanks again!

George_M