Posted by By WALE ALABI on
In order to consolidate its leadership position in the telecommunications sector, Nigeria's largest CDMA 3G mobile network, Starcomms Limited, has invested a whopping $200 million in new technology to boost its network expansion.
In order to consolidate its leadership position in the telecommunications sector, Nigeria's largest CDMA 3G mobile network, Starcomms Limited, has invested a whopping $200 million in new technology to boost its network expansion.
The package includes deployment of the EVDO release A, the latest technology on the CDMA platform, in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
Chief Executive Officer of the company, Maher Qubain, who disclosed this in a chat with Daily Sun in Lagos, identified Abuja, Onitsha, Aba, Asaba as cities slated to be linked shortly, to be joined later by Kaduna, Abeokuta and Zaria. They will join Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Maiduguri and Port Harcourt where the Starcomms network already exists.
Qubain spoke on a day Nigeria's ascendancy into a global telecommunications powerhouse received a further impetus with the visit of top officials of Qualcomm, patent owner of the CDMA technology, led by the Vice President, Dr. Tom O'Neil. The team flew in from the United States to compare notes with the regulator and other major players in the industry.
O'Neil was accompanied by Pertti Johansson, President, Qualcomm Middle East and Africa.
'The latest EVDO technology is capable of delivering average speeds of 800 Kpbs and will provide world class high speed broad band experience to the users," said Qubain.
The Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) platform, an advanced third generation (3G) wireless technology commercialized in Nigeria by Starcomms Limited, has made a huge impact in transforming the Nigerian telecommunications landscape as a much more efficient and cost-effective technology that can be conveniently handled by most subscribers.
The parley enabled the officials to provide fresh insight into developments in the global ICT marketplace, especially the CDMA platform, which is the most popular telecommunications channel in the United States. They also used Starcomms Limited to demonstrate the efficacy of CDMA in Nigeria, being the first to adopt the technology in the West African sub-region and currently Nigeria's largest CDMA 3G mobile network.
Qubain described the occasion as an auspicious one that had provided Nigerian stakeholders the opportunity of keeping abreast of latest advances in the industry besides strengthening economic ties between Nigeria and the United States.
He said: 'This visit is a clear endorsement of the performance of CDMA technology as well as Nigeria's evolution as a major telecommunications destination which will ultimately become a paramount player on the global stage."
The CDMA allows subscribers access to broadband high-speed wireless internet services capable of achieving peak data rates with a download speed of up to 2.4 Mbps and an average speed of 300 to 600 Kbps. It will also enable subscribers watch clear video, movies and broadcast over their 3G-enabled mobile handsets.
Described as a wireless technology for the future, CDMA is a "spread spectrum" technology, allowing many users to occupy the same time and frequency allocations in a given band or space, as it were. As its name implies, CDMA assigns unique codes to each communication to differentiate it from others in the same spectrum. In a world of finite spectrum resources, CDMA enables many more people to share the airwaves at the same time than do alternative technologies.
In other words, CDMA refers to any of several protocols used in second-generation (2G) and third-generation (3G) wireless communications. As the term implies, CDMA is a form of multiplexing, which allows numerous signals to occupy a single transmission channel, optimizing the use of available bandwidth. The technology is used in ultra-high-frequency (UHF) cellular telephone systems in the 800-MHz and 1.9-GHz bands.