NextG Coverage - Personal Experience.

Willie,

There's an underwater observatory at the end of the jetty,

Geoff

The signal will bounce off the walls of the observatory and diffract outwards in all directions once it reaches the open top. Then only 2km to the mobile base station. Easy!

It doesn't have an open top, it's a building on top above, the base station is not in the middle of town, it's a few k's down the cost ( I am living near it ).

850mhz is line of sight, it does not bounce on concrete... Even UHF at 477mhz would not bounce on concrete.

Sorry, Jeff, it does bounce off concrete, which is why you get ghosting on analogue TV. It's also why UHF works better than VHF in city blocks with tall buildings and in basements where the signal can find an opening.
If the building on top of the observatory (I haven't seen it) has an opening in it (I assume there is one for people to descend into the observatory) then the signal will get out/in. Mobiles even work in lifts if there is a small opening in the metal box.
Gerry

"which is why you get ghosting on analogue TV" VHF is hardly comparable to Microwave.

Ok, NLOS is possible if we want to get technical about it, however it is not as simple as just pointing your antenna at a concrete wall and having it happliy bounce it's way down to a the reciver like a tennis ball. Concrete is well known to cause reception problems with high frequency line of site transmitions, it's an indisbutable fact ned alone being 8m below sea level. Your average mobile phone signal (GSM) would be lucky to get threw 3 normal solid concrete walls in a best case scenario.

It is interesting that reading Telstra's blurb on Next G that they claim that users will not have the same reception problems in lifts that they currently do with CDMA and GSM.

I do not know much about the NextG protocol (apart from it's associaion with 3G), however I am assuming that the reason that they are able to get clear calls at lower signal levels is that there is a much higher bandwidth allowing for more advanced error correction with less "drop outs" as the avalible bandwidth isfar in excess of what is is required for voice calls.

Interestingly, my wife's GSM phone that had higher signal level while on the "surface" had no reception whatsoever down below. (She is also with Telstra). I know this because I have been comparing the signal strength/coverage as we have been driving around, as my older CDMA was not getting very good coverage at all compared to hers.

Hi Jeff,
Sorry, I only gave the ghosting issue as an analogy.
Actually, the reflective properties of RF increase from VHF through UHF to microwave and beyond. So at UHF we have quite strong reflections off concrete walls, together with less signal attenuation that you would get at microwave - it's a good frequency band for this sort of phenomena.
On the other hand, there is no way that the signal is going to pass through water; the only way out is over the top of the observation tank. Signals passing through water are reserved for VLF.
As the UHF signal exits the observation container, it can do two things; bounce off the walls of the building above and exit in particular directions allowed by openings such as windows/doors, or it can diffract up and outwards, much like you see the lights of a city behind a hill. The losses of the latter are high, but more than enough to reach a nearby base station.
Re the NextG technology, like CDMA, it is Code Division Multiplex, and is similar technology to that used by GPS. Many transmitters are working on exactly the same frequency, being separated by a unique code (the chipping code). The received signal of each transmitter can actually be below the ambient RF noise, and computer technology is used to pull the signal out of the noise as well as separate each customer's channel. Improvements in this technology allow weaker signals to be extracted. The wider bandwidth of NextG has its downside; wider receiver bandwidths, which allows more noise into the receiver, so the main gain with wider bandwidth is faster data speeds or more speech customers.
Re dropouts, I am not aware of what error-correction systems are used on either, but both will be sophisticated, and it is possible that the NextG employs the results of more modern research in this field.
Re the comparative indicated signal strength, I would not put too much credence on the signal level bar graphs on mobile phones; 3-5 segments in the graph are hardly a scientific instrument, and there is no guarantee that the device is either linear or logarithmic. My Nokia CDMA cannot make a call when it is showing 2 bars. Other devices make good calls with one bar showing.
cheers,
Gerry

No, however the software installed easily for dialup, hoever I wouldn't bother with dialup over the voice as the broadband is 1.8 to 3mbs depending on the cell. It's bizzare that it's so fast, however I am not on a data plan so it would be HELL expensive to use it. From the looks of it the data plans aren't too expensive, but I don't really need it for what I do with it. It is handy that it does my POP3 email though.

Actually, Ericsson are doing the changeover, and finished the first phase well ahead of time.
The switchoff of CDMA is still scheduled for early 2008.
Gerry

so theres more than 12 mths to worry.. I'll keep the 3245 until then :)

Truckster I too was in your frame of mind, but these changed it:

1. CDMA is only going to get worse as they continue switching cells over to NextG.
2. NextG is only going to get better as they switch cells over.
3. I can now not only make voice calls where I could only text message (is I was lucky) I can use faster internet than my ADSL at home and make video calls!

Trumps IMHO.

yea, Im still not sold on it, and im not sold on the CDMA thing gettin worse in a hurry..

+ expecting deals to get better as time goes on :)

Bugger mobile phones and up telstra's proverbial! I am enjoying no phone connection to the house and still have a phone and broadband @ 2mps download and 1mps upload. Love cable and considering I can make a national call for 10cents for as long as I want.. . . . screw mobile phones!

Bruce, the guy who was having trouble the other day has a Telstra phone, which is Chinese techology. Ok for things like kids motor bikes but hi tech???

I could have got a free car kit with the samsung, but I decided to go the LG because:

1. It had the 1gb Micro SD slot
2. MP3 Ringtones
3. A bigger screen
4. Looked a bit more manly (haha).
5. Looked stronger (I seem to wreck phones easily...)
6. I like LG products
7. I was on a high enough plan to get it without paying any extra (other than the hands free).

So yeah, just waiting for the LG handsfree kits' to come in, the old Nokia kit has blue tooth support so I have been using that in the meantime, works bloody good, but it doesn't charge the LG and I can't use the external atenna. But the bonus is that my wife's work car has the same nokia kit, so it doesn't matter which car I get in the phone automatically logs on to the handfree kit when I turn the key and log's off when I switch it off, even if it's in my pocket or her handbag. Neat.

Once I get the LG kit I'll pull the nokia one out and give it to my mate as he's go a bluetooth sony phone and it'll work a treat for him.

Wasnt LG AWA? or one of the other companies in the past..???

No It was GoldStar before hand

LG. Site Link

amazing, nobody would have touched Goldstar, but as LG...... LOL

Your right, it used to be Goldstar (geez, are you an elephant!, that's a good memory!).

Yeah Goldstar was rubbish, it was bought out about 15 years or so ago I think from memory. I used to work for a wholesale company that was an LG distrubutor, I had many dealings with them including doing product launches for them etc. LG gear is really good gear, honestly! I have no affiliation with them, havn't done for a long time, but with LG monitors, Aircons, dishwasher, Setop box's etc etc etc, I can tell you that they make really good gear, always have good interfaces and despite there in ability to have stock arrive on time to suppliers (my only gripe, hence my understanding of my handsfree kit being late and not being upset about it, I expected it) they also have good warranty. Nah, I honestly couldn't speak highly enough of them and if you compare a current day LG product to you old Goldstar clock radio I think you'll be suprised that they are not the same.

The company completley changed everything, including manufacting plants etc etc etc.

Jeff, have the LG car kit installed. Has re-radiating antenna setup as far as I can see. Have hardly used it yet as it is in Moses and have been away.

The LG phone is also branded Qualcomm. Lucky and Goldstar are a long way back technologically speaking in relationship to the LG products. I won't go Hyundai but I will LG.

Yeah, that's one of Telstra's money making scams, they do it on all their new connections. They set message bank to about 6 rings (and with the LG you can't hear the first to because it's vibrating!).

Then you miss the call, the caller get's diverted to your message bank and get's charged for the call, you get charged for the diversion, then you ring message bank to delete the message and get charged 30c per 30 seconds! Even though you already KNOW you range because you have the "missed call: blah blah" on your phone. A complete crock.

You have to ring Telstra customer support and get them to remove the message bankg AND the SMS texting so that your phone will ring out. It'll ring for bloody ever then, Mine has not rang out yet and it's ran for a long bloody time.

If you try and disable the message bank divert through the phone it will work, but it will still only ring 6 times or so, you have to ring them (they want to make it difficult!).

But once you've speant the 10 minutes clearing that up, all is good! You don't have message bank, but personally I don't give a flying frig as it's a comlete waste of time. There number is displayed on my screen and if it's a private number, I probably didn't want to talk to them anyway! ;-)

I've also got a cheapie on Optus/Isim and i have the same problem. It stops ringing and goes to messagebank before I can reach for it! Then it costs me money to receive the message and more money to ring them back.
This one I use only for cities and large towns - useless elsewhere.
Gerry

Hey guess what!! I just scored this awsome code to dial into your telstra phone:
**61*101**30#
That will double the ring out time and still divert to message bank. It was on Whirlpool forums because people were complaining about the LGTU500 ringout time, so I tried it on my wife's company nokia GSM phone (because we have no password we couldn't get telstra to change it!! GRRR) and it worked a bloody treat! Insteal of ringing out after 15 seconds (honestly, who is going to answer the phone in 15 seconds!) it rings out after 30.

I'm still happy with mine rining for 2 minutes and bleep off the message bank all together!! :-)

I can clear some of these up for you.

a) if you use a patch lead on any mobile (even nokia CDMA) you are likley to kill the phone as they are only designed for diagnostics and you can end up allowing the phone to transmit with no load (no antenna), even momentarily this can be fatal to the phone. Hence the reason that Nokia went to those crappy usless antenna couplers that didn't work.

The LG has an antenna connection in the car kit.
I have been told that the ZTE Telstra phone also has an antenna connector in the car kit.

b) You can buy leather covers WITH a metal belt clip for $10 off ebay for the LG-TU500, it fits inside and out (it looks quite good), don't know about the others because I havn't looked. I will probably buy the cover just to protect the phone more than anything.

>>, but severly let down by another half-arsed rush job.

I think we have hit on a winner here.

V8 Diesel
You can also get leather pouch for these phones at Fonezone, cost $20 and look good too and can clip over you shorts and has a magnetic clip over the top
As for the external antenna connection we had to get the hands free car kit and that comes with the patch lead all for $50 when we got the phone
Cheers Ray

Well thanks for that folks. The LG is looking more like a viable option then.

Poppy, that hands free car kit you mention, is it a traditional cradle setup where the phone actually physically makes an electrical contact and is then wired direct to an external aerial, or is a wireless bluetooth job? I was quoted $300 without install by the dolly bird at the phone shop who was more worried about her fake fingernails than actually serving me and she couldn't tell me anything about it which I took as a bad sign.

The leather puch you mention, is it an LG TU500 specific one or a universal type? Either way, who is the manufacturer?

Cheers all.

>> by the dolly bird at the phone shop who was more worried about her fake fingernails than actually serving me and she couldn't tell me anything about it which I took as a bad sign.

Standard issue in business these days. but then, if you were on $2.00 an hour would you care?

Hi V8
The hands free kit is the proper cradle type hard wired to your car and works a treat. The pouch is a generic one I think and has FORCE stamped on the metal clip and also works a treat
Cheers Ray
P.S I had the bluetooth one with my cdma and hated it

V8D, the hands free kit really plugs into the bottom and will have to be kept clean because of the small terminals. You have to pull that fiddly plug out of the bottom too as it can easily stop you plugging in.

Well I got my car kit yesterday and fitted it. A couple of dissapointments...

1. It has no bluetooth support!? Why offer a phone with bluetooth and not have bluetooth in the cradle. It's very handy when you are just popping down the shops to not have to root around for your phone and put it in the cradle, and if you don't, you know some bugger will call you on the way...

2. The antenna is not hard wired as I was told (I was also told it had bluetooth), it is a built in coupler type arrangment.

But...

The cradle is absolutally hardcore. It's a chunky big thing that you slide the phone into and click it into. Easy to get the phone in and out, but there is no way in hell that the phone will fall out in the rough stuff! (the nokia used to fall out of the cradle on corrugations etc, was a PITA).

The speaker and microphone are excellent, far better than the nokia ones.

The antenna coupler does seem to actually work very well (even though I HATE those things). With the nokia I used to LOSE signal strength with the coupler, with this one I've done a few tests with the 6.5db atenna on the nudge bar. Pulled over on the side of the road in a couple of places I was getting 3 out of 5 bars of signal strength holding the phone just in front of the cradle, whack it in and got 5 out of 5 both times. I'm heading back down to Busso on Boxing day (we are in Perth for Christmas) so I will play around with it some more then and see how it goes.

Sooo, anywayz, I was still peed off about not having bluetooth, as I've been using the Nokia kit with the bluetooth for a few weeks now and have really gotten used to just leaving the phone in my pocket and have the nice clear calls comming through the handsfree kit as well as the automatic muting of the radio as if it was in the cradle, so I played silly buggers with my installation.

I took out the nokia cradle and unplugged it from the control box, then left all the blue tooth controls on the dash, speaker and microphone in place. I then disabled the car kit profile on the phone and just pluged the LG control box into the power and antenna only and fitted the cradle in the place the old nokia one was.

Now when I get in the car and turn the accessories on the bluetooth connects to the nokia car kit (hidden behind the dash) automatically no matter where the phone is in the car. If I want the phone to charge, or I want better recpetion from the antenna I just click the phone in the cradle and it still stays connected to the nokia blue tooth setup.

Best of both worlds! ;-) Essentially all I'm using the LG kit for is a place to put the phone, a charger and an antenna plug. But hey, it works, and it works well so I'm pretty happy with that. My mate will be spewn cos he wanted my nokia one when I was done with it, but tough bickies hey! :-)

Interesting comments Jeff, have no Bluetooth capability except data comms here. Looking forward to connecting to the net with it some time. GSM internet comms are a pain they are so slow.

I should have mentioned the LG speaker connection is through a plug in the side of the phone, so you plug the phone into the the car kit, then plug the speaker / microphone plug in for action. Jeff's option if you have a Bluetooth kit is intersting, not so if you don't have it.

Yeah it's a bit of a rediculous setup really. The way mine is now it's just like any other handsree, just slap the phone in and don't worry about that stupid cable and she's away, with the added bonus of not having to put the phone in the cradle if you don't feel like it.

Hopefully there are a lot of people out there upgrading from the Nokia kit such as myself you will be able to do the exact same thing. I know one of my other friends who is upgrading from the same nokia phone/car kit so I'll be telling him to do the same thing...

why would you need bluetooth if you have the full house incar kit with hands free on that? or what do you consider a car kit? or is the cradle, just something to hold the phone?

I wanted Bluetooth because I don't always put the phone in the cradle, those little runs to the mother in laws (round the corner) or down to the shops I sometimes can't be assed, so it's handy to have the phone switch over the handsfree kit automatically when the car starts, even if it's in your pocket.

Secondly, the stupid LG car kit requires you to not only insert the phone into the cradle, you need to then plug in a headphone type jack in the side of the phone on top of that for it to work through the handsfree. Complete waste of time IMHO and a c-hunt of an idea... So I just don't use it. If you have a nokia car kit, it should have bluetooth, meaning if/when you upgrade and if you went with that phone (more than happy with the phone), then you could do the same. Once setup, you'd never know it was any different to normal.

Yeah you'll probably find that being a major country and tourist centre down here they have probably put a higher priority on here than some more remote places, but if this is a sign of what it will be like all over in the near future, big thumbs up from me. Which phone's are they using out of interest? I wonder if the brand has anything to do with it.

I know my Nokia CDMA was a bucket of crap compared to my motorola as far as signal/coverage is concerned. Was the other way around for robustness though, the motorla had a short life, the nokia kept on trucking on. Pitty it was a usless peaice of crap! I was getting similar coverage on the Nokia CDMA to what my mate was getting with Optus GSM down south! :-(
I'll be able to crap all over him with this baby though! HAHA ;-)