CDMA On Track to be closed January 28th..

Telstra has flung a new challenge to the Howard Government - now in caretaker mode - declaring its Next G network has now achieved the same or better coverage as the CDMA network - and stating it is "on track" to close the CDMA network on January 28.

But the Big T faces the obstacle of a condition imposed on its CDMA licence by Attorney-General Philip Ruddock which prevent a switch-off before the Government is satisfied with Next G coverage.

The Government is relying not on Telstra's word, but on an independent survey by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to determine if Next G coverage meets CDMA levels.

Telstra yesterday declared extensive testing conducted by its own teams with strategic partner Ericsson had already shown the Next G network is "bigger, better and faster than CDMA on every measure".

"The Next G network now covers 25 per cent more territory than the published coverage of the old CDMA network, has nearly 75 per cent more towers, offers speeds up to five times faster, and roams to more than 160 extra countries for voice and SMS," said Mike Wright, executive director Telstra Wireless.
Wright said drive test teams travelled more than 120,000km throughout Australia, gathering more than 500GB of drive log files for analysis.

Telstra claims the Next G network, at more than 2 million sq km, is 25 per cent larger than the published coverage of the CDMA network; has more than 6000 sites, nearly 75 per cent more than the CDMA network's 3480; offers data download speeds of 550Kbps-3Mbps, compared to a maximum of 300-600Kbps on CDMA 1x EV-DO; and achieved network call drop performance of less than one per cent within just 10 months.