Indonesia's PT Indosat will need to migrate its remaining CDMA customers to its GSM network to comply with a government order to shut down the network.
The operator has launched a compensation program for CDMA customers as it prepares to switch off the network, the Jakarta Globereported.
The nation's Communications and Information Technology Ministry has instructed the company to stop operating its CDMA network to free up the spectrum for other uses.
Indosat has an estimated 77,000 remaining CDMA customers under its StarOne CDMA brand across 83 cities – a tiny amount compared to the 63 million subscribers on its GSM network.
Under the compensation scheme, StarOne users will be given a new IM3 Indosat GSM SIM, and existing StarOne CDMA credit will be redeemable in the form of contributions to Indosat's Dompetku e-wallet service.
A temporary forwarding feature to customers' new GSM numbers will also be made available to affected customers.
While Indosat will offer its compensation scheme until the end of the month, the company has not yet specified when exactly it plans to switch off the CDMA network.
State-owned operator PT Telkom has revealed plans to switch off its own CDMA network by the end of the year.