An end has officially come to Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) segment of Nigerian telecoms, as data from Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) indicated there are no more subscribers on the technology. Although, operators in the segment had gone under years ago, there were still some 123,547 active CDMA subscriptions on the regulator’s database until last February.
CDMA, a digital wireless technology, uses spread spectrum techniques and is globally acknowledged as the better technology compared to GSM, given its inherent quality in terms of data speed and capacity.
Hitherto, Visafone and Multilinks were featuring in the segment as the only two operators with vestiges of CDMA in Nigeria. However, in March, NCC moved Visafone and its 119,087 subscriptions to the GSM segment, leaving only Multilinks in that segment with 4,460 subscriptions.
But, latest industry data for the month of April, however, showed that Multilinks no longer has a single subscription. That automatically brought CDMA’s share of the telecoms market to zero.
Recall that Visafone was acquired by the dominant GSM operator, MTN, in 2016. The deal, which was sanctioned by NCC, allows MTN to utilize Visafone’s 800MHz spectrum to launch fourth generation Long Term Evolution (4GLTE) services. However, transfer of Visafone’s spectrum and license did not take place until early this year. Other mobile operators had kicked against the transfer of the spectrum to MTN, arguing that it would give MTN undue advantage as the dominant player, but the regulator prevailed.
Industry analysts said the migration of Visafone to GSM segment became necessary because it no longer operate based on CDMA since MTN bought it over.
In what came as the final death knell on CDMA, NCC had, last year, withdrawn over 41 million numbers assigned to the operators in the segment. The withdrawal was part of regulatory efforts to put the country’s National Numbering Plan in order. The numbers withdrawn, which are both fixed and mobile, were those of Starcomms, Zoom Mobile (formerly Reltel), Multi-links, MTS First Wireless, Mobitel Limited, Rainbownet Limited, Odu’a Telecoms Limited, M-Tel and NITEL.
Before the licensing of GSM operators in 2001, the CDMA operators had been the saving grace for Nigerians who had been at the mercy of the Nigerian Telecommunication (NITEL). It was the days the likes of Multi-links and Intercellular were holding the ace. Post-GSM licensing, the CDMA segment also enjoyed a booming market between 2005 and 2006 when Starcomms and Visafone entered into the telecoms market in a big way, with roll-out plans across several cities in Nigeria. But this only lasted for a while, as the boom reached its peak in 2007 and a downward trend set in. Since then, many CDMA operators began experiencing hard times in maintaining their subscriber base, not to mention expanding the existing number.
According to the President of Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) Mr. Olusola Teniola, the extinction of CDMAs in Nigeria had to do with the management of the companies involved as well as operating on a regional basis and not on national basis, rather than about pricing. “The forces that dictate the market chose GSM technology for many reasons and one of the reasons is that the SIM card can be divorced from the device and the devices, in my opinion, are actually, more smarter and lovelier in the GSM realm than in the CDMA,” he said.
The Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria, (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, an engineer, believed that CDMA operators were killed by the harsh operating environment. The ALTON chairman, who expressed worry that same fate may befall GSM operators, said the environment was hostile for CDMA business and is still hostile for the surviving GSM operators.
He, however, also admitted that the use of CDMA lines was affected by stiff competition with GSM operators.
Source: https://www.newtelegraphng.com/2019/06/ncc-officially-ends-cdma-in-nigeria/