Australian telecommunications company switches off CDMA network
Updated
The Australian telecommunications giant Telstra says it's confident its new Next-G mobile phone network will provide better services than the CDMA network.
The older CDMA network is being shut down in Australia on Monday.
Telstra planned to switch off the CDMA network in January, but the government pushed back the date, saying it wasn't satisfied the new Next-G service provided the same level of service.
The communications minister, Steven Conroy, says Telstra has now fixed enough of the problems with the new network to switch off the old one.
The group managing director of Telstra Countrywide, Geoff Booth, says Next-G has been thoroughly tested, and it covers about 2 million square kilometres.
"CDMA covered about 1.6 million," he said.
"It is a bigger network, there's no doubt about it."
Most customers have already switched over, but all remaining CDMA contracts will be terminated at no cost to the customer.
Those phone numbers will be held for four weeks for anyone who wants to make the switch.
