Qualcomm Inc (QCOM)

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CDMA450 subscribers to increase to 2.5m by 2009 – report

22/11/2004 by John Tilak

http://www.dmeurope.com/default.asp?ArticleID=4517

The number of CDMA450 subscribers will increase from approximately 1m by the end of 2004 to over 2.5m by 2009, according to a report from market research agency In-Stat/MDR.

Cheap deployment is one of the most compelling reasons for the use of this technology.

Most CDMA450 service providers, having been NMT450 service providers, are located in Eastern Europe. A few service providers, including those in China and Vietnam, have deployed CDMA450 without first having deployed NMT450.

Because of the lower propagation loss at 450 MHz, only one CDMA450 base station provides the same coverage of approximately 25 WCDMA base stations operating at 2.1 GHz. Deploying a CDMA450 network is roughly 30 per cent cheaper than deploying a CDMA800 network and roughly two-thirds cheaper than deploying a CDMA1900 network.

CDMA450 does have disadvantages over other technologies. First, since the number of subscribers of CDMA450 is limited, so are the choices for handsets. In addition, CDMA450 handsets can’t roam to other GSM, WCDMA, and in most cases, other CDMA2000 networks outside of the 450 MHz band. This greatly limits roaming options for CDMA450 users.

Currently there are 14 CDMA450 systems that are commercial, and there are several others that have run trials and/or are waiting for their CDMA450 licence to be granted.