Telstra OZ CDMA network being decomissioned

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#23396 16-Nov-2005 23:07

Seems like a financial decison to me also, will mean new Quad band phones to accept the Wcdma 850Mhz standard.

Voda NZ may have to do this to make their Network truly competitive.

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#23399 17-Nov-2005 06:49

mjsit&t: Seems like a financial decison to me also, will mean new Quad band phones to accept the Wcdma 850Mhz standard.

Voda NZ may have to do this to make their Network truly competitive.

They can't. Vodafone only own the 3 900MHz GSM bands (old ETACS) and don't own any 800Mhz (old AMPS band) spectrum. Vodafone's biggest hope would be 900Mhz WCDMA becoming a standard.

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#23407 17-Nov-2005 08:42

Back to Telstra... Their new network will be on 850MHz... Meaning a lot of New Zealanders won't be able to roam there, since most phones sold here are tri-band. How is Vodafone going to cope with this?

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#23408 17-Nov-2005 08:52

thats a real good point, who is making 850Mhz capable phones out their??

I guess this will be a sticking point for Telecom and Voda although Vodafone Aussie still has quite a good network, not anywhere as vast as Telstras will be though!

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#23409 17-Nov-2005 08:59

Lots of the new Motorolas are all Quad band however it's only 850 GSM not 850 WCDMA. Doing a quick search I actually can't find any 850 WCDMA phones available, probably because Telstra may be one of the first live 850 WCDMA networks.

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#23412 17-Nov-2005 09:05

I would expect to be 850GSM and 850WCDMA. Otherwise it would make no sense in being an insulated country with a network not available anywhere else.

No one in the rest of the world would be able to roam there... Nope, it must be 850GSM too.

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#23413 17-Nov-2005 09:10

It is very early days to be talking about what lower frequencies W-CDMA might operate at. You would certainly expect that the GSM community will ensure that they standardise on a lower frequency so as to allow handset/roaming interoperability. I would very much doubt that Telstra would launch off on their own - standardisation has been the strength of GSM to date, and lack of standardisation with CDMA being the reason Telstra are moving away from it.

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#23415 17-Nov-2005 09:15

another good point, interesting though, the Telstra head obviously thinks it's the way forward but without obviouse handset choices at this stage in the process it could be risky.

Maybe this is a test bed for other operators looking to enhance the capability in coverage for their WCDMA networks.

Telecom may be in a prime position after all to look at introducing a WCDMA network (GSM roaming)

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#23417 17-Nov-2005 09:19

what about orange in oz for telecom CDMA roaming? They run a CDMA network, not sure how good their coverage is. Could or would orange buy telstras CDMA network? Would AAPT/Telecom buy telstras CDMA network?

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#23419 17-Nov-2005 09:22

timmyh: It is very early days to be talking about what lower frequencies W-CDMA might operate at. You would certainly expect that the GSM community will ensure that they standardise on a lower frequency so as to allow handset/roaming interoperability. I would very much doubt that Telstra would launch off on their own - standardisation has been the strength of GSM to date, and lack of standardisation with CDMA being the reason Telstra are moving away from it.

I disagree. CDMA is standard. They don't have data roaming standards, but I was told that this is changing. Voice roaming works fine - I have used the Harrier in Australia and the USA on Sprint and didn't have any problems.

Telecom New Zealand CDMA EVDO roaming to Australia actually set a new reference and it's actually (according to some sources I could reach) being investigated to be adopted as the standard for data roaming on CDMA EVDO networks. If this happens all is good for high speed cellular data.

As for "what lower frequencies WCDMA might operate at", Telstra actually said in their press release (posted today here on Geekzone) that it will be 850MHz.

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#23420 17-Nov-2005 09:25

timmyh: ... lack of standardisation with CDMA being the reason Telstra are moving away from it.

I doubt it. Mr Trujilo was the Orange CEO (France Telecom owned mobile operator). Last time I read about his performance on that position it wasn't a stellar one.

I think the thing could be simply the case of "I don't get this CDMA stuff. I only know GSM technologies. And I want to make a mark.".

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#23421 17-Nov-2005 09:27

From what i have seen Oranges CDMA coverage is average & they share Telstras, surely Telstra will reuse the 850mhz freq for WCDMA meaning CDMA will unable to be used on their sites, although they intend on using CDMA until the WCDMA network mets the same foot print, maybe they can still run them both. They are also still expanding their EVDO foot print as part of a Broadband initative and said they will continue with this until WCDMA is all complete and as good

Problem is even with WCDMA HSDPA which has a awesome max downlink it's uplink is crap and the testing has shown it is not as good as EVDO over a large number of customers. With Rev A and B coming EVDO is certainly the best data choice?

If you wanted national broadband wireless coverage EVDO would be the quality and technology choice whilst WCDMA is the mass market and global choice.

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#23426 17-Nov-2005 09:34

timmyh: This looks to be purely a cost cutting exercise from Telstra...they stated that the cost of delivering a voice call over a CDMA network were 3 x that of GSM and that Telstra spent 4 x the capital per CDMA subscriber than they did for GSM. Telstra would be one of the only operators in the world who could actually make these comparisons.

This has been missed by many readers - it is a cost cutting and rationalisation exercise - not just one standard vs. another.

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Ultimate Geek

#23427 17-Nov-2005 09:36

I have seen Oranges coverage, Telstra is certrainly the strong roaming option.

What i am a little baffled by is the decision to provide a national Wireless broadband service with WCDMA.

Sure it's global with GSM roamimg and HSDPA capability is their, however tests in the real world are showing HSDPA to perform poorly when large numbers of people want to use it, plus the uplink is crap.

Where as CDMA EVDO has already better Downlink speeds and soon with Rev a much higher uplink. So from a wireless broadband point of view for data only EVDO is the way to go and they only need to upgrade the sites and not build a new network.

However from a future voice and handset choice WCDMA is the option.

Interesting to see if they retain the EVDO hotspots when they switch over. They have stated they will swap out cards etc. They might find customers wont enjoy the experience of having 300-500kbps average with evdo and then the odd occasion getting a few mbps then 100-200kbps and a slow uplink with wcdma.

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#23428 17-Nov-2005 09:37

freitasm: I would expect to be 850GSM and 850WCDMA. Otherwise it would make no sense in being an insulated country with a network not available anywhere else.

No one in the rest of the world would be able to roam there... Nope, it must be 850GSM too.

Is roaming an issue though? They already have a nationwide GSM network and with the joint venture with 3 already have an extensive 2100Mhz WCDMA network. To me it seems to be more of a marketing decision - deploy WCDMA at 850MHz, offer people the benefits of a WCDMA network while retaining their existing rural coverage. This gives Telstra a massive advantage over any other WCDMA networks in Australia. Remember that many of those people in existing CDMA coverage rely on it as their only means on communication, Telstra can then offer them highspeed data and voice while having a common platform.

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