CDMA450 provide strong benefits - report

November 22, 2004

Having literally sprung up as a new cellular technology overnight, the popularity of CDMA450 is growing according to In-Stat/MDR. The high-tech market research firm reports that, as a result, the number of CDMA450 subscribers will increase from approximately 1 million by the end of 2004 to over 2.5 million by 2009.

Cheap deployment is one of the most compelling reasons for the use of this technology and, according to Allen Nogee, a principal analyst with In-Stat/MDR, "For NMT450 carriers wishing to update their old technology to the latest digital 3G technology, CDMA450 makes perfect sense, and is perhaps the only solution." Cheap deployment, however, is not the only benefit of CDMA450. Since CDMA450 uses the same technology as CDMA2000 operating at the higher frequencies, it has all the features and data speed of its parent technology operating on the higher bands, while still only having less than one-tenth of 1% of the total worldwide subscriber base. "Had another technology been used at the 450 band that wasn't aligned with a major technology as CDMA is, it would be much more difficult, if not impossible, to have technology as advanced with such a small number of total subscribers," said Nogee.

In-Stat/MDR has also found that:

-- Most CDMA450 service providers, having been NMT450 service providers, are located in Eastern Europe. A few service providers, including those in China and Vietnam, 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% 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 license to be granted.

The report, "CDMA450: Strong Benefits of Unconventional Spectrum", looks at the advantages and disadvantages that CDMA450 offers carriers, and some of the obstacles in deploying this technology. This report contains a listing of carriers that have deployed CDMA450, carriers that have trialed CDMA450, and carriers that are still running NMT450 networks. In addition, this report contains subscriber forecasts for CDMA450, and NMT450 out to 2009.