Telecom mobile resellers groan at delays to CDMA 1x

By RICHARD WOOD

Telecom is yet to announce a date for "CDMA 1x" - the next version of its high-speed mobile data network - now almost a year behind schedule.

The delay to the faster follow-up to the CDMA (code division multiple access) network, with expected speeds of around 80Kbps, is causing heartache among mobile resellers.

"We would have gone through and completed our pilots, understood the new industry, found all the process gains in using the wireless technology and the efficiencies and then away we'd have gone in a new industry," said Rocom Wireless director Richard Guy. "They've delayed it for so long we're 10 months behind."

Telecom spokeswoman Linda Sanders said more details would be available next month. Technical issues had to be sorted out and it would not be launched until it was working well. She said the network's supplier, Lucent, had paid an undisclosed amount to Telecom for non-delivery. Lucent refused to comment.

With handset sales down, CDMA 1x is seen as a key plank for Telecom's mobile resellers to push into corporates because of its ability to carry higher speed data services. Telecom resellers hope it will give them the high ground against Vodafone's GPRS (general packet radio services) mobile data network.

"I think you could certainly say it would be holding us up if wireless data was an established communications means and was sitting there and everybody had an expectation of what it could do," said Hart Candy general manager David Wall.

Sanders said Telecom was coming under pressure from corporate customers but G-Tran CDMA 1x PC cards had been made available. These cards can run at 14.4Kbps on the existing CDMA network in the meantime.

Vodafone general manager, consumer market, Hamish Wilkie said Vodafone was daily signing up customers who were sick of waiting for 1x.

"The speed becomes an irrelevancy. It's what you can do with the network."