No more cdma2000 for Telecom?

Telecom New Zealand (Telecom) has announced that it may dump its newly rolled out cdma2000 network and overlay it with W-CDMA technology. The company has commissioned equipment suppliers Alcatel and Ericsson to investigate the possibility of such a move. W-CDMA is the favoured standard of operators in Australasia, and Telecom already has some experience of the technology through its partnership with Australia’s H3G. It says that if the plan goes ahead, it will sign a roaming agreement with either Vodafone or TelstraClear, both of which are already in the process of rolling out 3G.