How government policy affected CDMA in Nigeria

Why CDMA Telecommunication failed in nigeria .

CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access is a mobile communication technology that allow many subscribers to and receive information concurrently on a single communication channel.

 CDMA operates on the spread spectrum technology which allows several subscribers to use the same space time and frequency allocations in a particular band.

Globally CDMA has been recognized as a better technology when compared to alternative technologies used by the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and is also said to be more less expensive for the operators to maintain and  leads to lower tariffs.
In 1998 the first of Private Telephone Operators (PTO) in Nigeria (multi-links) started operation through the CDMA technology.  

VGC Communications, Intercellular, Mobitel, EMIS and other all joined. In the year 2001 there were already 12 CDMA operators. GSM entered the market with an open license with high call rate and sim card for as high as N30,000 then, approximately $250 which is 100 times what a 4G sim goes for currently.

With all the excellent quality of service (QOS) CDMA had, they were unable to attract foreign investors unlike their counterpart did.  GMS is a world network without constraints on where they are used globally, the closeness of the CDMA phones make many in spite of it quality preferred a network that is open, a network that gives them freedom to choose their operators at will. This is the reason why phones locked with CDMA carriers are not used world with CDMA until they are unlocked. American telecommunication today is a blend of CDMA and GSM.

A careful view  at the Nigerian Telecommunications market, one can easily conclude that the CDMA apart from not having support from foreign investor, the market was one sided,  favouring GSM over CDMA because of Government policy. On contrary the GSM providers like MTN, Airtel (formerly Econet), Globacom and Etisalat enter the market with full  support from foreign banks, international finance brokers and partnership with foreign vendors like Ericsson

The limited regional license of CDMA operators was a major disability to their wide spread from the beginning compared to their GSM counterparts was the cog on the wheel to their growth in the market. Even this limitation starcomms, one of the operators with a popular slogan the ‘starcomms connecting people’ made it into Nigeria stock exchange market and that was the first and only telecommunication to be enlisted into the market. Thus becoming a PLC.

Earlier in 2007, MTN bought VGC Communications Limited (VGCCL), a Lagos-based Private Telephone Operator licensed by NCC to provide cabling and radio, telephone services nationwide and had laid extensive fibre optic cables, and Internet service provision. 

This places MTN in a position of being  a single dominant player in the voice and data markets in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry.
The unfair market condition on the side of CDMA pushed almost all the operators out before 2016 and in January 2016  the only remaining CDMA operator in the country, Visafone Communications Ltd was acquired by MTN Nigeria thereby making the country void of CDMA operators.

It there is predicted that in the near future, mobile operators on all platforms including GSM and CDMA will embrace to the Long Term Evolution (LTE) which is capable of delivering a speed of up to 37.5MB per second on the device against the 3.1MB that is currently available on the 3G networks. On this premise some are of the opinion that MTN acquired Visafone so as to access the 800 MHz spectrum band, which will enable it deliver 4G LTE services to its clients.

CDMA without any doubt has much advantage over GSM. GSM in Nigeria had been strongly with the deployment of 3G network which works far better on CDMA platform than what we get on GSM. 5G is out and MTN is making plan with its Vendor

 Ericsson to give it a trial in 2020 in South Africa.
The question now is do we still need CDMA in the country going by the poor quality of service we get daily from our GSM operators that has currently put Ghana ahead of us based on the international telecommunication union ( ITU-R) rating?