Neotel sees advantages, USALS could benefit CDMA is slowly but surely becoming better known to the African mobile telecommunications community. Once, it was implied, CDMA was an also-ran that lost out to GSM in the last mobile networking race, but it seems the technology is now emerging as a viable option for African telecoms.

William Hearmon, chairman of the African CDMA Forum, speaking at the recent 2008 CDMA Middle East and Africa Regional Conference in Cape Town, said: "Until three years ago, there were only four CDMA network operators in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to some 64 for GSM. Now the tide is changing and a network operator would be mad not to be considering CDMA."

BUT WHY THE CHANGE OF MIND?

CDMA, which sands for code division multiple access, is a digital cellular technology that accommodates a number of users by assigning each one a specific code that enables efficient use of the radio spectrum. On the other hand, GSM uses time division multiple access, which assigns time periods to each user.

CDMA is supposed to be more efficient in that it allows for more users, fewer dropped calls and fewer base stations that need to be erected, says the US company that owns the CDMA patents, says Qualcomm.

But it is not just the lowering of capital costs, or the better quality of service that has the network operators interested, rather it is its ability to allow for wireless broadband deployment, an essential ingredient to shoring up the declining average revenue per user (ARPU) mobile companies are facing as more and more people join their networks.

DATA GROWS DEMANDS

James Munn, Qualcomm VP for sub-Saharan Africa, says the uptake of CDMA is being driven by the need for the network operators to increase their ability to carry data, especially as the demand for Internet connectivity grows.

"Africa has only a 3% to 4% Internet penetration. It is far behind the rest of the world and studies show that $490 is added to a country`s gross domestic product for every 1% increase in Internet penetration," he says.

Munn believes that the economic benefits of CDMA type technology are the drivers behind South African network operators Vodacom and MTN looking at implementing a version called Wideband-CDMA and the reason for second national operator Neotel using CDMA Revision A as the technology of choice for its consumer offering.

ABOUT NEOTEL

During the conference, Neotel CTO Angus Hay stated that the decision to use CDMA for the roll out of the long-awaited fixed/mobile consumer offering was driven by the understanding that Internet Protocol was the be all and end all of a converged network.

Quoting one of the fathers of the Internet, Vincent Serf, who said: "IP over everything and everything over IP," Hay emphasised the new role for a telecommunications operator was essentially a distributor of information. He noted the end-user didn`t mind how he or she received or sent it, but cared only that it happened.

Despite great local interest, Hay did not state a launch date for Neotel`s offering. Rather, he said that Neotel was getting everything right for the launch by developing its billing systems, ensuring that the fibre optic cable was laid and that it would be well received by consumers who have become increasingly demanding.

Other potential users of CDMA technology in SA could be the under-serviced area licensees (USALs), a government-led initiative to create companies that will have rural areas as their main markets. However, the creation of these USALs has been problemtatic.

"The USAL process seems to have stalled," Munn says. "Probably the best route for them to go is to become some kind of virtual network operator similar to the relationship between Virgin Mobile and Cell C."

Finally, because CDMA is proprietary technology, Qualcomm has come in for criticism about the royalties networks have to pay to use it.

"Quite frankly, royalties paid to us only account for about 6%, compared to 22% and higher for some of the GSM technologies," Munn says.