Cable and Wireless Jamaica (C&W) will close down its old TDMA mobile network on March 30, but expects to retain customers who will no longer be able to use their old phones.

C&W, in a press statement last Friday, said that it had migrated the majority of its customers to its GSM network, which was launched in 2003.

In order tomake it attractive for the remaining TDMA customers to stay within C&W's network, the firm plans to allow them to keep their numbers, while giving discounts for new handsets to pre-paid customers, and free phones to post-paid customers.

This move by Cable & Wireless will conclude the transition to the second-generation (2G) technology. When it was launched four years ago, C&W stopped taking on new TDMA customers.

Cost of transition

The transition cost C&W J$5 billion in the 2004 financial year, while another $1 billion has been invested in GSM since. In 2004, C&W also recorded a J$5.4 billion impairment primarily as a result of "the estimated impact of the final stage of the liberalisation process in March 2003, whereby the international direct dial business was liberalised."