After years of planning, Telecom New Zealand has finally shut down its CDMA network, just over 5 years after Australia did the same.
Telecom New Zealand handled the shut down which kicked off at 11pm local time last night and ran through to 6am this morning.
New Zealand launched its CDMA network in July 2001 and built on that with the high-speed 1xRTT data technology one year later. The first picture messages were able to be sent in August of 2002 before internet access over the CDMA network became a reality in April 2003.
By December 2005, Telecom New Zealand could offer 3G wireless broadband to every major city in New Zealand before launching EV-DO CDMA data capabilities in September 2006.
CDMA’s days became numbered when Telecom New Zealand launched the XT network and dated the CDMA shutdown for July 31 2012.
By contrast to Australia, Telstra offered a local CDMA service which opened in 1999 and was subsequently shut off in April 2008 in favour of the faster Next G network. Despite the short distance between Australia and New Zealand, it has taken five years for the land of the long white cloud to catch up to its neighbours across the ditch.
Locally, Telstra sounded out the warning yesterday that its older 3GIS network has but a month worth of life left in it as the telco looks to refarm the spectrum into the new 4G network.
Image: Nyaya Health