Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, April 18: Country’s fourth largest telecom service provider Reliance Communications (RCom) has stopped its CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) services in Orissa since April 1 this year, sources in the know said. “The company has already stopped its CDMA services in the state from April 1 and has given notification in this regard to customers,” an official of a leading private telecom company said who wished not to be quoted.
He also said for smooth transition of its existing customers’ base to other networks, the company has also notified the method of portability to customers. According to sources, the company has given options to customers to shift its services to other networks or to RCom’s GSM services. “A customer with CDMA handset can migrate to any other GSM network or to RCom’s GSM network. Outlets of the company will provide help in this regard to customers for smooth portability,” the official said. RCom had earlier said that it had plans to upgrade its roughly five million CDMA customers to 4G network in a phased manner, from May 4, joining its bigger rivals like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular among others. “We will be upgrading our network from CDMA to LTE (4G) technology using the liberalised 800 Mhz spectrum,” the Anil Ambani-owned telco had said in a letter to Telecom department (DoT) on April 4. It had also said that the company would be rolling out LTE services progressively in these service areas from May 4, for which necessary intimation would be provided to its existing CDMA subscribers.
Sources say RCom will leverage its spectrum sharing pact with RIL owned Reliance Jio Infocomm for 4G services. Notably, RCom and Jio have inked spectrum trading and sharing pacts in a bid to leverage each other’s 800 MHz spectrum for launching 4G services across India.