Telkom Kenya, which operates under the Orange brand, has announced that it is closing down its CDMA mobile network, after carrying out a review of the future of the technology in the global market. The switch has led to fears that Orange is switching its Landline services which were clarified by Orange. The Switch means the Orange Wireless Mobile service and the CDMA data modems (The famous Orange white modems) are migrated to GSM a move geared towards enabling the firm focus on advancement of GSM technology and better reliability. The clients using the fixed-line solution popularly referred to as Land-line are unaffected and there are no plans to shut it.
Orange recently added 14 urban centres to its 3G network and by end of the first quarter of 2015, and there are plans to link an additional 27 urban areas onto its network, bringing the number of new 3G locations to 41 across the country. The firm states that customers are able to migrate their CDMA numbers onto a GSM SIM card. “CDMA technology is no longer able to favourably compete with 3G and LTE, its evolving GSM component. Moreover, CDMA is fast becoming obsolete around the world and the maintenance of the same will not be a simple affair for any telco in the mid and long term,”said George Mlaghui, Chief Corporate Communications Officer.
The company plans to incentivize customers who were previously using the two services with a range of vouchers; from KSh 500 to KSh 10,000 dependent on their line consumption in 2014. This will allow them replace their CDMA (Orange Wireless) devices and MVDO Modems. The incentive is available to both prepaid and postpaid clients.
IMG Credit: dno1967b, Flickr
