CDMA Groans as GSM Glows

Restricted access to funds, poor disposable income and limited coverage are some of the reasons Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) players are yet to keep pace with the explosive growth of their Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) counterparts, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
As at June this year, the total active CDMA subscription was just 7.2 million compared to 59 million of the GSM operators, according information from the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC)
Touted to possess immense potentials including their strategy to penetrate into rural, underserved communities and to provide affordable, effective services that appeal to the less fortunate among the citizenry, CDMA has played only fringe roles.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that  CDMA operators’ inability to raise funds to compete with GSM service providers limits their ability to compete effectively for voice communications. The low income level of users is also affecting the spread of CDMA, a channel access method utilized by various radio communication technologies.  Many want to be connected but cannot afford to carry more than three phones having purchased two GSM services already (One is back up in case of service disruption).
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek further gathered that Starcomms, Multi-Links Telkom, ZoomMobile and Visafone, all major CDMA operators growth have not been phenomenal despite having  had their regionally based licenses upgraded to unified access service licenses (UASLs) , allowing them to extend their reach beyond traditional geographical limits and compete in both the fixed and mobile markets.
But with well oiled machinery, the CDMA operators can wrest the market out of the GSM operators because they have more chances to increase their capacity up to 8 to 10 times that of an AMPS analogue system and 4 to 5 times that of a GSM system.
By the nature of the technology, CDMA has improved call quality,  better and more consistent sound as compared to AMPS system, simplified system planning through the use of the same frequency in every sector of every cell, enhanced privacy, improved coverage characteristics, allowing for the possibility of fewer cell sites, increased talk time for portables as well as bandwidth on demand.
One of the most important advantages of CDMA is that they are able to charge lower on-net and off-net call charges than GSM operators.
They also provide very cheap and partly subsidized mobile handsets that  appeal to the low-end market