Visafone and RIM Unveil 1st CDMA BlackBerry Services

Visafone Communications Limited, Nigeria’s leading code division multiple access (CDMA) service provider, and Research In Motion (RIM), Canada-based makers of BlackBerry smartphones have inked a deal in Lagos that will see the first CDMA Blackberry roll out in the country, more than a decade after liberalising the telecommunications sector.

Consequently,  three brands of BlackBerry smartphones; Bold 9930, Curve 9310 and Curve 9370 respectively will be available from October 29th, 2012.

The launch is expected to benefit any Visafone customer that wants access to email, Internet and social networking apps, including BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™), Facebook®, Twitter™ and Social Feeds.

Mr. K. V. Srinivasa, chief executive officer of Visafone Communications, said that the partnership with RIM brings the wide range of smartphones on demand by the Nigerian market, especially BlackBerry.

He also said the unique selling point of the company in terms of the BlackBerry devices and its after sales services is the company’s flagship shops which numbered up to 88 across the nation.

And the rating of the company by the government’s regulatory agency, the Nigerian Communications Commission as the number one in terms of quality of service.

“The moment is here to ping on Visafone network,” he declared.

Mr. Waldi Wepener, RIM regional director for East, Central and West Africa, said that  RIM chose to add Visafone to its list of partners in the country as a result of Visafone’s good quality of service.

Wepener further disclosed that RIM presently has 5 partners in Nigeria including Visafone as the only CDMA network on the list. He expressed RIM’s pride in supporting Visafone with the launch of BlackBerry solutions to their existing and new customers across the nation.

“BlackBerry solution from Visafone offers customers a strong selection of smartphones and a wide range of services that connects them to people and information,” Wepener said.

According to Wepener, the BlackBerry Bold 9930 on Visafone has a high performance keyboard, a 5.0 megapixel camera with a responsive high-resolution touch screen and Wi-Fi as its special features while the Curve 9310, a 3.2megapixel with an inbuilt FM radio.

The Curve 9370 has an optical trackpad for easy and one-hand navigation with inbuilt GPS and Wi-Fi support.

The three devices, like any other BlackBerry devices allow users to easily interact with their social network in real time. They can also support external storage memory expansion up to 32 GB.

Mr. Jim Ovia, chairman of Visafone, in his address said the network has an amazing call rate alongside its supersonic data experience, and that users of Visafone BlackBerry can roam everywhere in the world which is going to give users an edge.

“This launch is a major boost to the NCC’s efforts to achieve growth of data usage and quality of services to Nigerian,” Ovia said, that the partnership denotes a big step forward in the continent’s mobile history.

Visafone has some records to its name, from being the first network operator to have 1 million subscribers in 6 months on inception to also being the first to get 2 million subscribers in 9 months in the nation.

Visafone is also the first telecommunications company to be Open Market Handset (OMH) compliant and the first to offer prepaid and postpaid roaming opportunity across Africa.