Both the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) and the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks might soon cease to exist in their current form, says Mr Lanre Ajayi, President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), said.
Commenting on the need to resuscitate the dwindling CDMA networks in the country, Ajayi CDMA and GSM are both dynamic technologies that may soon merge into what is called Long Term Evolution (LTE).
“Both GSM and CDMA are changing. In fact, very soon, there won’t be anything like CDMA. Very soon, there won’t be anything like GSM. So, I don’t think we should worry about it. Both of them incidentally are evolving into a new technology Long Term Evolution’’ he said.
According to him, the technology that a service-provider used is no longer  as important as the business model which the operator is using.
“What is important is the scale of a service provider; are they operating on a large scale or on a small scale? So, those are the important things because both technologies may not even exist any longer,’’ he said.
Also, Mr Gbenga Adebayo, the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), had told the News Agency of Nigeria that the CDMA network in the country had the challenge of competition posed by the GSM operators.
He said the CDMA operators were faced with the problem of inability to access the capital required to compete with the GSM operators and so are unable to catch up with the applications and features of their competitors.
“There is nothing wrong with the CDMA network because even in America, a large part of its national network is running under that technology. So, what should be done is for the players to consider being regional operators; I think that is the way around for them,’’ he said.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in September declared 13 CDMA networks inactive, saying only two of the operators — Visafone and Multi-Links — were active as others could no longer operate after massive loss of customers to the more competitive operators in the industry.