Telstra's specially trained Coverage Advocates have already made thousands of phone calls and conducted over 550 visits to CDMA customer's homes and workplaces to prove coverage equivalence and help ensure people get the right handsets and equipment.

Some of the positive outcomes reported by Coverage Advocates:

• Cockatoo, VIC – customer could make calls from within their house with the Next G™ network but could not with the old CDMA network.
• Lakes Entrance, VIC – business customer tested the Next G™ service on country roads and was surprised to find he could not make a call from his old CDMA phone but could on the Next G™ Country Phone™.
• Neerim South, VIC – farmer who didn't have CDMA coverage in certain patches on his cattle property but has coverage all over with the Next G™ network.
• Dandaragan, WA – customer could not hold a call on their CDMA phone in their house but the Next G™ network worked fine.

Telstra Country Wide GMD, Geoff Booth, said the Coverage Advocate team were making real in-roads in addressing concerns raised by some customers as they move from CDMA to Next G™.

“The great news is that the Coverage Advocates program is working and the remaining CDMA customers are making the move to the Next G™ network with added surety and confidence,” Geoff said.

In addition to the Coverage Advocates program, Telstra's hotline – 1800 888 888 – is also helping people work through with issues with their Next G™ handsets.

As with any mobile network, coverage on the Next G™ network depends on a person's location, the handset being used, and whether that handset has an external antenna attached.