NextG Phone Reliability
 

When approaching a town with a mobile phone cell, I may call the refueller and/or AWIS at TOD. Never a problem with CDMA but half the time with NextG the phone answers and works perfectly for 5-10 seconds before it drops out. Try again a bit closer to the station and it happens again. Any others suffering similarly? My phone has the "blue tick" as good for long range in the bush. No problems on the ground.

Could be more to do with the handset rather than the network. What model is it?

I use a Samsung and have never had any such problems on NextG. Came in handy after suffering an alternator failure one day and had to switch everything off for the 90 minute flight to maintenance.

Actually I have found the NextG to work far better in the outback than the old CDMA with far better range.

For what it's worth, I've found that my pre 3G phone had better range, airborne, than my 3G iPhone but the 3G iPhone has coverage in more places than the pre 3G phone did.

I thought that the CDMA network was fantastic and was really negative about Next G. But Next G is really good now. It took a couple of years, but now it is good. Initially I had a Nokia NextG handset which was a loser. I gave it away after a month. Then changed to the LG flip phone. This worked well in flight and with an external aerial on a good ground plane we can get over 50 km from a tower. Then I moved to the blue tick Palm to get email as well. That was a waste of money for more than one reason. I canned it a few months later and moved to the (unrated by Telstra) iphone. The iphone gets better reception than the LG handsets without external aerials but not quite as good as when the external aerial is added. Initially I kept an LG handset for use flying, but now I don't bother. I get call drop outs, but no worse than the LG handsets or the old CDMA phones. I tend to use it most at TOD in Nth & Western Vic & Nth SA. A number of rural pilots I've met swear by the Telstra NextG phone with the pull out aerial.