Before Nigeria's telecommunications landscape was dominated by giants like MTN, Airtel, and Globacom in the early 2000s, a significant but quieter revolution was initiated by Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators. These companies provided crucial access to reliable telephone connections at a time when the state-owned Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) was largely ineffective due to poor infrastructure, insufficient investment, and limited coverage outside major cities like Lagos and Abuja. Many still argue that CDMA technology was superior in several aspects to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) alternative that eventually eclipsed it.

The journey began in the late 1990s when the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) broke NITEL's monopoly by licensing several Private Telecommunications Companies (PTOs). This pivotal decision introduced CDMA technology to Nigeria, allowing companies like Multilinks, which received its license in 1996 and commenced operations in December 1998, to offer fixed and mobile telephony services. Other key players included Intercellular, Starcomms, and Visafone. Even MTS First Wireless, Nigeria's first mobile phone network established in 1992, repositioned itself as a CDMA operator by 2002, offering Nigerians unprecedented choice.

CDMA's fundamental advantage lay in its efficient spectrum utilization; it shared available airwaves among all users simultaneously, leading to superior call quality and faster data speeds compared to early GSM. Starcomms exemplified this innovation, becoming the first CDMA operator listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 2008 and the first in Africa to launch EV-DO high-speed broadband services. At its peak in late 2008, Starcomms boasted 2.7 million subscribers, positioning itself as the fourth-largest telecoms operator nationally. Visafone, founded in 2007 by Jim Ovia, quickly expanded by acquiring existing CDMA operators and achieved three million subscribers between 2010 and 2011, the highest ever for a Nigerian CDMA provider.

Despite this momentum, structural challenges began to emerge, primarily due to the nature of the licenses granted. Initially, CDMA operators received regional licenses, constraining their ability to expand nationwide, unlike GSM operators such as MTN and Econet (later Airtel) which had national reach from day one. This structural limitation placed an inherent cap on their potential subscriber base and, consequently, their revenue for vital expansion. From 2001, MTN, Econet, and M-Tel were granted a five-year period of exclusivity to build nationwide mobile networks, a window they exploited to acquire millions of subscribers and deeply embed themselves into Nigerian life.

By 2006, when the NCC finally upgraded CDMA operators' regional licenses to Unified Access Services Licences (UASLs), granting them national reach, their GSM counterparts had already established an insurmountable lead. MTN had 40 million subscribers, and Globacom, launched in 2003 with its innovative per-second billing, had reached 15 million. While CDMA initially offered cheaper services compared to GSM's launch price of ₦30,000 for SIM cards, this advantage eroded as GSM prices fell and coverage expanded. A more critical issue was device compatibility: GSM's flexibility, allowing SIM cards to be used across various phones, proved far more appealing than CDMA devices, which were typically locked to specific networks. By the end of 2015, the combined subscriber base of the two remaining CDMA operators, Visafone and Multilinks, stood at a mere 2.1 million, in stark contrast to GSM's 150 million. The NCC officially reported 0% market share for CDMA companies by 2019, marking the end of an era.

The demise of major CDMA companies was a gradual process. Mobitel ceased operations in 2005. Multilinks, despite being Nigeria's first private telephone company, was acquired by South Africa's Telkom for $410 million in 2007, but the subsidiary consistently ran at a loss. After a failed attempt to sell to Visafone, Multilinks was eventually offloaded to Helios Towers Nigeria for a mere $10 million in 2011. Intercellular, an early pioneer, was undercapitalized and regional, losing its subscribers to competitors. Despite a 2015 attempt at a 4G comeback, its telephone number was withdrawn by the NCC in 2018, and Airtel acquired its spectrum in 2019. Starcomms, arguably the most ambitious, with 2.7 million subscribers and a stock exchange listing, collapsed as GSM operators aggressively undercut its pricing and expanded into its territories. A merger attempt in 2012 with Multilinks and MTS to form Capcom failed due to lack of funding, leading to Starcomms being declared inactive by the NCC in 2014. Visafone, the best-managed and last surviving CDMA operator, peaked at three million subscribers but saw its market share dwindle to 1.58% by September 2015. It was acquired by MTN in 2016 primarily for its 800 MHz spectrum to facilitate 4G LTE services. Although the NCC approved the deal with conditions for Visafone's revival, MTN ultimately migrated Visafone subscribers to its GSM network, completing the liquidation in the first half of 2024 with a ₦30.3 billion write-off.

While GSM's perceived superiority contributed to CDMA's downfall, the real reasons were more complex. CDMA operators in Nigeria were often undercapitalized, poorly managed, and severely hampered by regional licenses that stifled their national growth ambitions. A 2016 report highlighted corporate mismanagement, including the diversion of expansion funds into unrelated ventures like manufacturing, oil and gas, and political campaigns, as a significant factor in the sector's collapse. Despite their ultimate failure, CDMA operators played a crucial role in ending NITEL's monopoly and connecting millions of Nigerians who had long awaited telephone services. The challenges faced by CDMA operators—underfunding, infrastructure deficits, and a hostile operating environment—resonate strongly with the current pressures on today's GSM giants. As MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile grapple with regulatory demands, subscriber frustration, and escalating infrastructure maintenance costs amidst naira devaluation, securing tariff increases in early 2025, the echoes of the CDMA era serve as a potent reminder of the fragility of even dominant players in a dynamic market.