Telstra and Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) have announced that their network sharing joint venture will end in 2012. Created in 2004, the joint network revolves around the use of 2100MHz spectrum, and in recent years Telstra has focused its efforts on its Next G infrastructure, which uses its “superior 850MHz spectrum.” At the end of the cooperation period, the infrastructure and spectrum assets used by the partnership will be incorporated into “other networks that Telstra and VHA operate.” Separately, VHA announced “major new network investments, strengthening the Vodafone 3G network in and around cities and towns across Australia.”

Telstra says that its 2100MHz switch-off will go “unnoticed by most of the customers still using the earlier network, because their handsets will automatically roam to the GSM network for voice calls and SMS” – it has fewer than 170,000 customers connected to the network, compared to more than ten million for Next G.  It says that “in recent months” only 158 customers used the 2100MHz network to view video content, with 1,500 placing video calls. It will also “encourage” customers to upgrade their handsets to Next G-capable devices ahead of the end of the alliance – aside from the LG watch phone, “sold to 23 customers,” it has only offered Next G compatible devices since April 2007. VHA is in the process of unifying the separate networks built by Vodafone Australia and 3 Australia, with the company also planning to use 850MHz spectrum to provide improved in-building coverage and capacity for areas where data demand is high. It also trumpeted a pilot deployment of femtocells, and successful trials of LTE technology using 1800MHz spectrum, in partnership with Huawei.