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Наталя ХандусенкоHot News
21 February 2025, 12:23
2025-02-21
The era of the CDMA system in mobile communications is over in Ukraine: almost 30 years of using the technology are behind us
This year, Ukraine discontinued the use of the radio technology "Digital Cellular Radio Communication CDMA-800", which appeared in the 90s. The largest CDMA operator was "Intertelecom". It became known that this technology did not have long to live a few years ago, when major players began to close their projects, for example, the American operator Verizon turned off its CDMA network in December 2022. Despite everything, the technology has its advantages, so it continues to be used in the Global Navigation System GPS.
This year, Ukraine discontinued the use of the radio technology "Digital Cellular Radio Communication CDMA-800", which appeared in the 90s. The largest CDMA operator was "Intertelecom". It became known that this technology did not have long to live a few years ago, when major players began to close their projects, for example, the American operator Verizon turned off its CDMA network in December 2022. Despite everything, the technology has its advantages, so it continues to be used in the Global Navigation System GPS.
The first license in Ukraine for the use of frequencies for CDMA-800 technology was granted in 1996. But the technology did not live to see its 30th anniversary: January 1, 2025 is the date of termination of the use of the radio technology "Digital Cellular Radio Communication CDMA-800" in accordance with the Plan for the Allocation and Use of the Radio Frequency Spectrum in Ukraine.
CDMA communication systems had significant advantages over existing technologies at the time, which led to a rapid growth in the number of regional operators. Their total number over the entire period of using the technology reached 18, says Volodymyr Korsun, Director General of the Ukrainian State Center for Radio Frequencies.
In the 2000s, the CDMA system was further developed in terms of increasing the data transfer rate to 3.1 Mbit/s in the forward channel and to 1.8 Mbit/s in the reverse channels (CDMA2000 1X EV-DO Rev. A), which already met the requirements of 3G technology (WCDMA) for Internet applications. And the latest modernization of the system (Rev. B) allowed combining frequency channels (up to 15) and obtaining data transfer rates of up to 73 and 27 Mbit/s, respectively, in the forward and reverse channels.
In 2015, mobile operators in Ukraine (Kyivstar, MTS Ukraine and lifecell) received licenses to use frequencies in the 2 GHz range for 3G UMTS (WCDMA) technology. New opportunities appeared to use all frequency ranges available for 2G and 3G technologies, combining services. It was with the aim of effectively using the spectrum as a state resource that the process of refarming frequency bands in the 900 MHz range began, which also affected the CDMA-800 operator due to the appearance of interference for GSM in neighboring frequency bands around the 880 MHz frequency (E-GSM range).
At the same time, neighboring countries, which had previously implemented 3G in the 900 MHz band, began to file claims about interference from CDMA-800 networks in the border areas with Ukraine, because CDMA-800 was not subject to European spectrum allocation. Therefore, coordination agreements were concluded that significantly limited the power of CDMA-800 base stations, which worsened coverage, limited access to the technology and caused a crisis in the development of CDMA-800 networks.
The largest CDMA operator was Intertelecom, which was launched in 2001. In 2012, the company had 1 million subscribers. Such a large number was facilitated by the acquisition of a competitor, CDMA Ukraine, which served 373,000 subscribers. But since the fall of 2022, the company has rapidly begun to transform from a national player into a regional one, ceasing to provide services in all regions except Odessa.
On January 1, 2025, the era of CDMA in mobile communications in Ukraine ended. But the CDMA technology itself did not cease to exist. Due to its advantages over other technologies, it is widely used today in the Global Navigation System GPS, in low-power application networks, as a prototype of one of the first ecosystems in the telecommunications industry, and some others.
