Dead CDMA Telephone Lines Litter Nigeria

Latest statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms industry regulator, has suggested a crowded graveyard for the once active code division multiple access (CDMA) subsector of the telecoms industry.

According to the NCC, CDMA lines dropped from a whopping figure of 2,187,845 to 2,108,960 between the period of December 2014 and January 2015.

The GSM counterpart however recorded a total of 139 million active lines up from 137 million in December of last year.

In all, the current active lines (both GSM and CDMA) stood at a little above 141 million lines in January up from the 140 million recorded in December 2014.

CDMAs have continued to perform poorly due to a number of reasons including the local financiers’ refusal to lend to CDMA operators because of their repulsive financial record.

Further investigations revealed that some CDMA operators had over the years regularly and consciously ignored sustained and systematic red flags as their promoters and managers diverted funds meant for expansion into frivolous projects like manufacturing, oil and gas, politics and so on.

The deaths of CDMAs were also quickened by corporate mismanagement because of the fraudulent and self-serving practices of some members of board and management and the overbearing influence of chairmen or MD/CEOs of CDMAs.

Experts also point at non-compliance with laid down internal controls and operation procedures, biased recruitment exercises and general lack luster management practices as some of the reasons why the companies have failed to click.

The sorry state of affairs with the CDMA operators has also to do with growing subscribers’ preference for GSM services.

Only recently, the NCC listed one national carrier, one GSM operator, five CDMA operators and six fixed/fixed wireless operators as inactive.

The operators include NITEL, MTel, Starcomms, Reliance Telecoms (Zoom Mobile), Intercellular, MTS First Communications, WiTel, O' Net (Odua Telecoms), Rainbownet, Monarch Communications, Xs Broadband, Webcom, and Disc Communications.

The operators became inactive, following the total loss of their customers to other operators that are currently pulling weight in the industry.

They had since gone into extinction and could no longer offer competitive services to their customers, who decided to port to other network operators.

NCC decided to declare the operators inactive to enable it study and circulate the accurate figures of telecoms operations in the country.