Optus or Telstra for regional coverage?

Just got back from a two day trip around NE Victoria. I got the chance to
check the NextG coverage to see if it's improved since my last outing,
this time last year.

Ironically, I found in a couple of towns, that Optus' GSM service had
better coverage than Telstra's NextG. I was somewhat surprised. I was in
one town. Took out the phone to check for messages. One bar on the
antenna. Go inside the cafe that we'd stopped at, the signal would
disappear and I'd get "Emergency Service" on the display. A mate's Optus
connected phone had 5 full bars.

Spoke to the locals at various places about their mobile services. It
seems that for the most part, people transfered to other services prior to
CDMA switching off with few complaints about having to do so.

On Sun, 04 May 2008 18:58:48 +1000 Snapper <snapper1@y7mail.com> wrote:

> Ironically, I found in a couple of towns, that Optus' GSM service had
> better coverage than Telstra's NextG. I was somewhat surprised. I was
> in one town. Took out the phone to check for messages. One bar on the
> antenna. Go inside the cafe that we'd stopped at, the signal would
> disappear and I'd get "Emergency Service" on the display. A mate's
> Optus connected phone had 5 full bars.

Don't let Parky bot read this.

He will call you an un Australian traitor.

Polly the Parrot wrote...

> Don't let Parky bot read this.
>
> He will call you an un Australian traitor.

I doubt that he'd have anything constructive to say. After all there are
no Telstra press releases that cover this situation that he could use to
copy/paste.

Tell ya what though. The Alpine region of Victoria has excellent coverage.
Not surprising either. The size of the mobile tower on one of the peaks at
Hotham Heights looks like it could carry a signal to Mars. But then it's
not surprising. All the yuppies end up there for 3 months of the year. If
it was another holiday spot where the yuppies don't go, for example, the
Ninety Mile Beach area of eastern Victoria, then you can't really expect
the same level of service.