Telstra Chief Operations Officer, Greg Winn has announced a $10 billion overhaul of the telco’s burgeoning network infrastructure including a new 3G mobile phone network and an entirely new next generation IP infrastructure to carry voice and data traffic.

You have seen other telecommunications companies develop next generation networks either to replace their fixed network or their mobile network, said Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo. What we are going to be doing is to do both at the same time, in a dramatically shortened interval. Nobody else has done that.

The changes will result in 80 per cent of the telco’s existing systems turned off and/or replaced in the next three years. Incremental change is not going to be enough, said Winn.

Winn, who described himself as Telstra’s plumber explained that the current Telstra mobile network, which consists of GSM, CDMA and 3G networks can be completely revamped and replaced with a new national 3G wireless network. The cost of the CDMA network which currently serves the bulk of regional Australia is four times more expensive to run that the company’s GSM network, he said.

“Will build a national 3G network in the 850 MHz spectrum and migrate all customers to the new network” said Winn.

Existing CDMA customers will have a migration path to equivalent of better service than today. The 3G GSM network will provide extended range equal to CDMA thanks to improved performance of the technology.

Earlier Trujillo had shown a complex diagram outlining how the Telstra networks had grown in an incremental fashion over the years resulting in a fragmented set of silo’s which offered few possibilities for integration.

Winn’s job is to re-build the network in a fashion that will promote the provision of integrated services at a lower cost than it does today.

“We have let this network become more complicated than it needs to be,” said Winn. It adds cost, reduces reliability and impacts customer satisfaction he continued. The second major component of the network transformation will be to change the IP transmission capabilities of the company. Winn said the current environment doesn’t support the vision of simplifying customers.

The company also plans to cut its multiple data networks using protocols such as X25 and frame relay and replace them all with a TCP/IP network to carry all voice and data traffic. Winn said Telstra is committed to reducing the number of vendors it works with to build a new network core based on TCP/IP. The new network will be faster and more cost effective and will focus on buying solutions rather than the past practice of building its won, he said.

In the voice area the company plans to install high capacity soft switches which will allow it to decommission 116 “expensive and complex to run”  class five switches across the capital cities. Voice over broadband will be a part of the new network.