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| From: | "Warner Lamb" <cloud9@i4free.co.nz> |
| Date: | Wed, 28 Jun 2000 17:18:33 +1200 |
Title: Telstra Set to Roll Out World's Largest Cellular Network
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The old analogue network will cease to operate altogether in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania from midnight (AEST) on Friday.
Analogue phones will also stop working in most of South Australia, all of Queensland south of Rockhampton and all of Western Australia south of Kalbarri.
The closure is the second stage in the $A600 million ($US356.7 million) upgrade of Telstra's network, after 80 per cent of analogue coverage ceased on January 1 this year.
The Northern Territory and the remaining areas in South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia will still have analogue coverage until October.
By the end of the week the new CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network will cover almost one million square kilometres, making it the largest in the world.
"At the end of this week, most of the CDMA rollout will have been completed," Max Jennings, Telstra general manager CDMA, told AAP.
"It is pushing the one million square kilometre coverage mark which is probably the largest single cellular network in the world."
Mr Jennings defended the new network, which the federal government and farmers criticised after the January shutdown as
providing inferior coverage to analogue.
He said Telstra had conducted extensive testing in all states to ensure coverage was adequate.
"We have been working extremely hard to firstly rollout more network and secondedly to do some fine tuning of the areas that were causing concern," Mr Jenning said.
"There's probably going to be a few folks who don't want the analogue to close but I think once they get onto the CDMA network and start using it, they will be fairly pleased with what they see."
He said the new network now covered 350,000 extra Australians who did not have analogue coverage previously and an area 51 per cent larger than the analogue network.
Mr Jennings said that would increase to 500,000 additional people who did not previously have analogue by September. The CDMA's geographic "footprint" will be almost double at 960,000 square kilometres.
Telstra staff have been conducted drive tests throughout the country to determine how the network compared.
Mr Jennings offered an example from a 4,900 km stretch from Port Douglas to Port Augusta in which Telstra staff found only 42 km did not have CDMA coverage.
He said this compared to 780 km on the same stretch without analogue.
Telstra's new CDMA network comprises 1,900 base stations with another 200 to be completed by August.
At 1355 AEST, Telstra shares were four cents higher at $6.80.
ASIA PULSE
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