[May28th
2001]
Telstra today announced the availability of WAP on its CDMA digital mobile phone
network.Telstra
OnAir’s Director of CDMA, Mr Tim Buckley, said CDMA customers would be able to
take advantage of faster CDMA data speeds for a wide range of WAP content.
CDMA provides customers with data speeds of up to 14.4 kilobits per second,
shortening the time taken for customers to establish a WAP session. This will
enhance the customer experience and pave the way for future content rich
applications.
CDMA also has a unique feature with enhanced background noise suppression, which
is the result of more sophisticated technology, making it an ideal technology
for noisy environments.
“WAP services will complement other major network advantages with CDMA
including coverage of twice the land area of any other cellular network in
Australia and high quality voice clarity,” Mr Buckley said. “Telstra CDMA
customers now have a choice of more than 80 WAP applications including online
shopping, airline flight schedules, e-mail, games, ski condition reports,
horoscopes, television news, sports results, lotto results and entertainment
guides from their WAP enabled handsets”.
Mr Buckley said the popularity of the recently released live AFL and NRL
football WAP application service demonstrated the growing interest in WAP
applications by Telstra customers. This site allows customers to download the
latest match updates, statistics and news and is the start of a range of
services to be launched in the coming months. "Telstra is very excited
about this announcement and will continue to look at new applications for CDMA
content in the future,” Mr Buckley said.
The first new WAP-enabled CDMA handset available now is the Kyocera QCP3035. The Kyocera 3035 has additional features such as two way SMS
capability, vibrate alert, data capability and a car kit with external antenna
is also available. More WAP-enabled CDMA handsets will arrive shortly.
