Try, Try, Try Again

Australia. It appears that Telestra has hit a regulatory snag on their way to conversion to 3G. The signal reach of the new infrastructure is not as good as the old CDMA signal. –

The planned January 28 closure of the regional CDMA mobile network has been deferred until April 28, offering signal-starved rural phone users a temporary reprieve and delivering Telstra its first governmental bitch slap for 2008.

Despite expensive research claiming that Next G offers better coverage than the older CDMA network and a frenzied pre-Christmas sales push for rural users, a report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that there was not absolute network equivalence and that Telstra hadn’t taken sufficient steps to help customers make the transition.

“I have notified Telstra today that at this point in time I am not in a position to declare equivalence between the Next G network and the CDMA networks,” Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy said in a statement.

Probably won’t be the last time we hear of conversion difficulties. But at least the move is being attempted. Better than I can say for the US of A.

Linky.