CDMA hits 100,000

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Tuesday 29th January 2002

Telecom's (NZSE: TEL) new CDMA mobile phone service has clocked up 100,000 customers after six months in operation.

Of those, around half are new customers and half were already Telecom customers who have upgraded to the new 027 network, which was launched last July.

Telecom says CDMA - code division multiple access - provides landline-like voice quality, an ability to connect to the internet and view specially formatted web pages and international roaming. It also provides high level security and data speeds.

The telco leader introduced the new technology to compete with second-ranked Vodafone's popular GSM network, which was seen as having a technology edge over Telecom's analogue mobile offering.

Telecom says it now has a total of more than 1.3 million mobile customers. The company first launched its mobile services in 1987 and it took six years to achieve the first 100,000 connections.

It says the CDMA technology will provide a transition path to third generation services such as full internet access, M-Commerce, file transfer, video and interactive entertainment.

However Telecom doesn't say whether the 100,000 customers within six months is above or below target. The company will certainly need to lure considerably more clients to the service to begin to recoup some of the $200 million that it cost to bring CDMA fruition.

Telecom's next report to the market is due on February 19 when it will announce its second quarter and half-year results to the end of December 2001.

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