Telstra Prepares to Shut-Down its CDMA Network
At midnight Monday 28 April 2008, Australia's Telstra will commence a multi stage process to close down its CDMA network across the country. Wireless Executive Director, Mr Mike Wright, said Telstra had been preparing for the closure of the CDMA network for more than two years. "Closing the CDMA mobile network is a complicated process and our engineering team has ensured nothing has been left to chance," Mr Wright said.
"At midnight AEST Telstra's Global Operations Centre will initiate steps to progressively turn off the CDMA network, starting with inhibiting any new voice, text or data connections. This will initially occur in the eastern states, followed by others in accordance with their local time zones.
"Our focus is always on the customer, so any calls that are in process at the time of the closure will be allowed to continue until 1am local time on Tuesday 29 April," Mr Wright said. "We've also ensured that existing Emergency 000 calls initiated before midnight will be individually allowed to continue until they are completed."
Following the network closure, any calls to a remaining CDMA service will receive a "Number disconnected" announcement, while text messages will receive a "Message Not Sent" indication.
From 29 April 2008 the process of deactivating approximately 3,500 CDMA sites and removing redundant equipment will commence. The aging CDMA network equipment, which is now up to a decade old and past its use by date, will be removed and any equipment still of value will be reused, sold, recycled or appropriately discarded.
Telstra announced in December 2007 more Next G (WCDMA) base stations are being added to expand the breadth and depth of coverage in areas that provide customer and commercial benefits. The Next G network now offers more than 190 network coverage locations where there was no CDMA coverage before.
Posted to the site on 22nd April 2008
