CDMA trials offer hope to rural areas

Johannesburg, 01 Mar 2005

A trial of the latest Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 2000 technology, which is currently under way in Johannesburg, holds the promise of high-speed connectivity for users, pending approval of spectrum use by the regulator.

Conducted jointly by Qualcomm, Ericsson, MTN and Transtel, the trials are aimed at proving to the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) that this technology can be deployed across the 800MHz band without affecting other communications technologies that also use the spectrum.

According to Tom O`Neill, Qualcomm`s corporate VP for business development, the advantage of the 800MHz spectrum over others lies in the fact that a single base station can cover an area up to 20km, whereas a standard 3G base station can only cover an area of about 4km.

"One of the key factors is that CDMA 2000 EvDO (Evolution Data Optimised) can operate at speeds of up to 2.4Mbps, compared to the standard 3G technology, which uses Wideband CDMA (WCDMA), and can offer speeds of 384Kbps," he says.

"These high speeds, coupled with the distance covered by a single base station and the fact that 70% of CDMA 2000 subscribers play in the 800MHz spectrum means this spectrum is the 'sweet spot` between the physics of transmitting and the economies of scale needed to make it cost-effective."

Angus Hay, Transtel`s CTO, says the second national operator (SNO), of which Transtel owns 15%, believes CDMA 2000 could be a key technology for the Telkom rival once it is licensed, providing ICASA allows the use of the spectrum.

"The 800MHz band is allocated primarily to broadcast facilities and on a secondary scale to wireless local loop. All we are seeking is to see the priority in spectrum usage shifted, so that it is more easily available to both the SNO and the underserviced area licensees (USALs)," he says.

"I believe the SNO and the USALs can co-exist, and with this type of technology especially useful in rural environments, we would far rather seek synergy with the USALs than try to take them out."

He says the key to the technology remains the spectrum, and the key issue that will come out of the current trials will be what ICASA chooses to do with 800MHz band.

O`Neill claims there are two levels of users who will be attracted to this technology, namely those who have previously not had access to telephony, notably in rural areas, and then the high-end users will be corporates who will use it for anything from distance learning and remote monitoring to telemedicine.

"The trials have been under way for a little over two weeks and have another four weeks to go, after which we will hand over all the data we have on spectrum sweeps to the regulator, and when the dust settles, we will judge the success of the trial by ICASA`s decision on spectrum allocation.

"We want to congratulate ICASA for allowing the trial to take place, but we also want to urge them to move fast on this issue, as SA is already falling behind nations such as Angola, Nigeria and Uganda, which already have 800MHz networks in place," he says.