Goodbye analogue, hello CDMA for phones
By RICHARD BAKER
RURAL REPORTER
Friday 30 June 2000
Country people will be hit with more than the GST on Saturday.
Not only is it the start of the dairy industry's deregulation, it is also the day that the analogue mobile phone network will close across most of the country.
As of midnight on Friday, the remaining analogue mobile phone stations in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, most of South Australia, southern Queensland and southern Western Australia will be switched off.
The network is being replaced by Telstra's controversial code divisional multiple access system.
CDMA is a high-speed digital network capable of carrying data as well as voice.
Country areas have used the analogue, rather than the global system for mobiles digital network, because it provided better coverage.
Nearly all new mobile phones allow access to both digital networks, although CDMA - which also works in urban areas - will have far greater coverage in rural areas.
Telstra's CDMA general manager, Max Jennings, said the network covered 51per cent more of Australia than analogue did at its peak.
By 2001 CDMA will cover about 950,000 square kilometres of Australia, becoming the world's biggest single mobile phone network, according to Mr Jennings.
When CDMA was introduced into parts of Victoria and NSW in January, rural people complained about a decline in mobile phone signal reception.
In addition to the poor reception, some rural areas had their analogue network closed before CDMA was operational, leaving some people without a mobile phone network.
Mr Jennings said Telstra had listened to and acted on complaints and he was confident that problems related to coverage and "drop-outs" had been fixed.
"We've come a long way since January ... we've been continually tuning and retuning our network where high drop-outs were reported," he said.
Victorian Farmers Federation president Peter Walsh said the CDMA network had slowly improved since January and that complaints from country people had fallen.
Mr Walsh expected the network to offer as good a service in the country as analogue did once it was fully operational.
Mr Jennings said the remaining analogue networks in WA, Queensland, parts of SA and the Northern Territory would be switched off in October.
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