China Telecom Says CDMA Network Has No Network Retirement Plan, but Transferring User Group is Real

At the Tianyi Intelligent Terminal Trade Show held last week, China Telecom announced that it will start a plan to build an LTE network at 800MHz, and will achieve full-network coverage in the first half of 2017. The previous 800MHz band was used for CDMA, so the news came out, many people in the industry speculated that this means that telecommunications should give up CDMA.

However, the relevant person in charge of China Telecom subsequently denied this in an interview. The source stated that 800MHz re-cultivation does not affect the use of existing mobile voice and mobile data services by Chinese telecom users, and China Telecom does not currently have a CDMA network retirement plan.

However, from a global perspective, abandoning CDMA seems to be a trend. In North America, the move from CDMA to LTE is the U.S. carrier Verizon, which has already begun to close CDMA networks in certain regions; MetroPCS, a subsidiary of U.S. T-Mobile, operates the CDMA network announced on June 21, 2015. At the beginning, the CDMA network will be gradually shut down; operators such as Thailand Telecom, Brazil VIVO and Indonesia PTTelekomunikasi Telecom also announced plans to close down their CDMA network.

It is a trend to abandon CDMA, but the specific time depends on the situation of each home, and establishing LTE network and CDMA are mutually related, but not necessarily synchronous. At present, customers of telecom CDMA network operators rank first in the world. From China Telecom’s acquisition of China Unicom's CDMA network (including assets and subscribers) to China’s 110 billion in 2008, China Telecom has announced that CDMA subscribers have reached 100 million in just three years. Prior to the closure of CDMA, telecommunications needed to transfer this large number of subscribers to a new network.

At the beginning of this year, China Telecom made it clear that it will suspend the issuance of 3G cards in April, open 4G networks for all users by default, and stop subsidizing 3G terminals to speed up 4G construction. In July of this year, China Telecom also said that it will build 460,000 4G LTE base stations this year, with a national coverage rate of over 95%.

In addition, the reduction of 4G tariffs and thresholds and the popularity of low-end 4G mobile phones will also be necessary prerequisites for CDMA delisting. It is understood that China Telecom will face the rural market in the second half of this year and will focus on the development of the thousand yuan machine and the old man machine market and lay out the entry-level market. The popularity of 4G terminals will undoubtedly increase the upgrade of existing 3G users to 4G services.

Via Sina Technology, Netease Technology