The CDMA Development Group (CDG) (www.cdg.org) reported that more than 150 operators around the world use CDMA2000 3G technologies to serve rural markets with advanced communication services.
CDMA2000 is an ideal platform for these markets because it provides greater coverage with low frequency transmissions, supports voice and high-seed data communication, and offers a broad selection of devices, including low-cost handsets.
'Residents and businesses in rural areas desire access to affordable mobile services just like everyone else,' said Perry LaForge, executive director of the CDG. 'CDMA2000 is the technology of choice among rural operators to enable affordable telephony, high-speed Internet and multimedia access to remote areas that have a low population density and often limited purchasing power. As a result, CDMA2000 technology is helping fulfill the promise of bridging the digital divide in many regions of the world.'
CDMA2000 is connecting residents and businesses in rural markets to telephone and Internet services in every continent of the world; for example, through 3G services offered by MTN in Africa, SkyTel in Russia, Tata Teleservices in India, Telstra in Australia, Valtron in Peru, Embark in North America and Nordisk Mobiltelefon in Norway.
Existing CDMA2000 cellular spectrum allocations and extended range base stations maximize coverage which is critical towards addressing the demanding business case for providing rural mobile communications.
When compared to technologies that use frequencies above 1 GHz, CDMA2000 networks operating in the lower 450 and 800 MHz spectrum bands allow for greater range, less cell sites, better in-building penetration, better mobile performance, less power consumption, higher capacity, and higher average data throughputs.
Using the lower frequency bands is preferable for providing affordable universal access to voice communications, Internet access and multimedia services in rural markets.
For low voice (200 minutes of use per month) and data usage (5 megabytes per month) in sparsely populated areas (31 subs per square mile), CDMA2000 at 800 MHz requires one-seventh, one-third, and one-half the number of cell sites required by WiMAX at 2,500MHz, GSM/EDGE at 900MHz and WCDMA/HSDPA at 2,100 MHz, respectively. This enables operators to meet their universal service obligations more economically and offer valuable and government sanctioned services such as distance learning, telemedicine and public safety more effectively.
CDMA2000 also is the technology that will sustain its lower cost basis through the deployment of flexible, scalable, and backwards compatible All-IP networks.