CDMA vs Next/3G mobile coverage Townsville Area

[eugah]

Can anyone tell me how far out to sea Telstra Next/3G coverage goes. I currently have a CDMA & know it works at Maggie shoals. I know i have until February to swap over but want to do so as soon as the new coverage works out wide.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Adrian

[blaze]

what we are finding locally the next g phones have not got the same coverage as the old cdma, they keep telling us it will be better but we are yet to see it. I am holding off as long as I can. Maybe a good thing for the city but its crap in the more remote areas
cheers
blaze

[seabug]

Next/3G is hopeless in Tasmania.

We stayed at the Treasure Island cabin park in Lawn/ton last night and there was no coverage. And that is only a couple of km's from the cente of town.

Also there is no coverage down south around Southport.

Regards
seabug

[Kerry]

At present compared to CDMA, Next-G is currently totally hopeless. The other thing that defeats marine type setups is there are no Next-G kits available so as to make use external antenna's.

Have had to even recently install CDMA in remote dial-up situations as Next-G falls a long way short, CDMA is still the only system that can reach the more out of the way places, even where Next-G systems are running.

Regards, Kerry.

[Kerry]

And what's more if one looks at Telstra's Next-G coverage maps it gives the impression it's a good thing, should be a law against misrepresentation.

[blaze]

I couldnt agree more Kerry, The lousy reps trying to promote it down here have convinced a bloody lot of people to change over and some of them have had to get there old cdma's going again as they are that hopeless. Its a pet hate of mine ATM
cheers
blaze

[griz066]

Next G absolute crap compared to CDMA I was one who thought I would embrace the new technology, boy was I had.
The phone they told me was the best was the blue samgsung.............piece of SH!T it is.
My suggestion would be hang onto the CDMA as long as you can and hope the next g gets better.
Don't hold your breath though.

[subzero]

I may be wrong, and probably am.... but either someone told me, or I read somewhere that CDMA is going to be phased out as it has not proved all that successfull. Like I say, I might be wrong, but if I was looking at buying a new phone I would definately be checking how long the networks are going to be operating. I am pretty sure that their must be a phone bloke in here somewhere that can correct me or confirm this.
Cheers Lloyd

[bay_firey]

You are correct - CDMA IS being shut down early 2008.

[luigi]

Looks like the bloody government's not content to leave us with lousy roads - they intend to shut us up with an inferior phone system too.

Hey, but we're only country bumkins with few votes so who cares?

[Tassie JR]

Next/3G is hopeless in Tasmania.

We stayed at the Treasure Island cabin park in Lawn/ton last night and there was no coverage. And that is only a couple of km's from the cente of town.

Also there is no coverage down south around Southport.

Regards
seabug

i agree seabug it is really hopeless in tassie went down there in january for holiday and a normal telstra phone was getting more coverage then the next/3g mobile and the cdma was getting coverage almost every where so i think the cdma is the best phone for coverage.

tassie JR

[Owen]

I imagine 3G is just like the Optus coverage I had before
Fine as long as you don't go outside of a major metropolitan area.
Ou company just upgraded many of our Reps phones to the lates Imate Jas-Jams and Telstra 3G network.
We can now send & receive emails whilst on the road, browse the internet, write word documents and excel files etc etc etc.

Pity if you want to make a phone call though


The piece of crap hangs up at least 5 times a day (if you can get it to connect in the first place). And I'm talking in the middle of bloody Gladstone.
It ain't Brisvegas, but it's not exactly Ayres Rock either.
It locks up constantly (requiring a re-boot).
You can't actually dial a number while you're mobile as you can't use the stylus, so you have to use voice recognition dialling.

You know that thing when you try to get the right department at a government agency???
Get ready to live with it 24/7

And haven't they got the range on the bluetooth hands free sorted out!!!
If you're anywhere within a 50m radius of your car, the bloody phone will ring, but you can't answer it because the car kit takes over.

OK, OK.
Most of this isn't about 3G.
But IMHO, 3G is about as well conceived as the piece of crap it's being delivered in.

After a few more beers, I might tell you what I really think

[chuss]

I'm going to explain a few things.
I'm an ex Nortel Engineer (we did the CDMA design for Telstra)

CDMA operates in the 800Mhz band. 3G (UMTS) operates in the 2.5-3.2 ghz band (depending which country).

What does this mean? Lets say there is 1 mobile CDMA phone tower at spot X. If you had a CDMA handset, you may be able to make calls up to 20km away..(in a perfect enviroment). If the same tower at spot X was a 3G tower, you may only be able to make a phone call 5km away from it..

The higher the bandwidth range, the lower the signal strength (comparing CDMA to 3G).

There is also a restriction called TIMING ADVANCE. This is a number configured on the network which restricts phones making calls from a certain distance from a particular cell on a tower.

Water is a funny thing. Radio waves do weird things over water, these signals can cause interference across harbours and gulfs with other mobile phone users. SO, what us engineers do, is change this value of timing advance so that the signal over the water is kept to a minimal distance.

Mobile phone networks aren't engineered to provide coverage out at sea. Maybe harbours and small rivers/gulfs. But not offshore (ie 2km out to sea).

Get UHF/VHF and if you really want to, go for the serious Marine TRXs. They may cost you a bit in purchasing/licensing, but these are designed for the purpose.
There is also satellite phones available on the iridium telstra network, again cost may be an issue.

Any questions, message me.

[Kerry]

Chuss,

So then what is the whole point of it then? Make a call out to say 20k but now only 5k, bit of a backward step regardless of the phone radio debate as the radio debate is quite another and different issue.

It would appear most phone networks are no longer being engineered for land coverage either and if you engineers thing that is somehow a good thing then somebody needs to step back and take a long gard look at the actual situation, not some drumed up artifical coverage that in no way reflects the real world.

Big claim is this 95% coverage, BS, 95% of the population yeah but only 5% of the foot print does not equate to a satisfactory phone system. Unless of course it's nothing more than an attempt at draining the most $$'s out of the users?

Some private companies are actually funding installations simply to get coverage and what's more paying Telstra for the privlidge and then Telstra turning around and making $$'s from it.

CDMA right at this time, right now is the only network that can reach many places but of course new activations of CDMA have been shelved and the big sell is on to push people to Next-G, sooner than latter. Try and get an explanation from phone operators why CDMA has no problems with reception yet Next-G is crap, nil, ziltch, none at all and what are they going to do about it, all one gets is stonewalled, in fact they don't have any answers, which begs the question why Not?


Regards, Kerry.

[eugah]

Thanks guys that has well & truely answered my questions. I'll stick with the CDMA until it gets cut off. I think all fishermen should boycott Telstra until they do something about providing us with suitable coverage.


Adrian