CDMA, as a wireless technology, died when Verizon, the world’s largest CDMA operator with over 92.8 million subscribers as of Q1 2010, joined the GSMA and said that they’re going to deploy an LTE network. It’s on track to be turned on this year too, with field tests involving real users happening right now.
The fastest speeds CDMA had to offer were 3.1 megabits per second on EV-DO Rev. A technology. There was a second revision created, EV-DO Rev. B, and that promised 14.7 megabits per second, but no one really cared about it since both WiMAX and LTE, hell even HSPA+, offered double, and in some cases triple, what CDMA’s last push had to offer. There was supposed to be a CDMA based competitor to LTE called UMB, but Qualcomm threw in the towel and in November 2008 said that they’re not going to purse UMB technology and are instead going to endorse LTE.
With that in mind, here’s China Telecom. They have 71.5 million subscribers as of the end of May, and are on track to surpass Verizon as the world’s largest CDMA operator within 12 months. They’re going to deploy EV-DO Rev. B. Current trials are taking place in three cities with equipment from Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei. No time table has been given as to when this new network would go up.
“The early indications are that Rev. B is mature, and most network performance measurements are in line with our expectations,” said Dr. Qi Bi, CTO of China Telecom’s Beijing Research Institute. “But we are still evaluating the data and considering what to do next.”
If there’s a will, there’s a way. Someone will make Rev. B based modems and mobile phones, and they’ll only work in one country, on one operator, but thanks to China’s sheer scale, it’ll be impossible to ignore an expected customer base of around 100 million people.
[Via: Light Reading]