By James Wells

ALICE SPRINGS: Telstra updated Retravision dealers today at the group’s annual seminar in Alice Springs on the rollout of the NextG 3G network which has been adopted faster by Retravision than any other channel in the marketplace.

“As of this week, there are 415,000 Next G customers and we are on track to be the leading provider of 3G by May 07," said Telstra dealer channel director – Stephen Eyears.

Retravision, with its substantial regional footprint, is well-placed to migrate consumers from the CDMA network which is expected to be closed in February 2008.

“We need to migrate people to CDMA and you are extremely well placed to migrate customers coming through. We are expecting 5,000 customers a month to migrate across from your network and we need to do it quickly. If they start backing up, it will be hard to get it all done by February."

Eyears was particularly complimentary of the rapid take up of NextG and applauded the group for being the fastest adopter of this technology, particularly due to the group’s regional customer demographic.

“Over 90 per cent of Retravision’s overall sales are 3G or NextG. This is an incredibly high figure and higher than any of our channels,” Eyears said.

The average revenue per user (ARPU) per month is $89.36 for Retravision connections, which is higher than the ARPU of CDMA – $45.52 and the ARPU of GSM – $38.33.

Eyears also confirmed that Telstra is looking to introduce non-flip and more rugged phones which will suit regional users and he confirmed that these phones will be sold with compatible in-car kits.

Eyears also said that although there are rumours of the release of a NextG Nokia phone for Retravision stores, this has not been confirmed at this stage and that if and when this is released, existing Nokia car kits will be incompatible and will require an upgrade.

Telstra also announced that pre-paid NextG will be available from 22 May.