…MTN takes the shine
NO fewer than 190 locations in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, Abuja, the federal capital territory (FCT) and seven other states and cities are now live with the Fifth-Generation (5G) mobile network, and MTN becoming the first telecommunications provider in the country to launch the much anticipated network spectrum in the country.
This is coming days after Mafab Communications, one of the two telco companies licensed to provide services with network spectrum reported it hit a setback in its rollout.
NaijaTimes gathered MTN Nigeria has already began to connect its subscribers in seven states – Anambra, Borno, Delta, Edo, Imo, Kano, Rivers, Oyo, Lagos, and the FCT Abuja, leaving out 29 others.
The telco provider had earlier hinted that the test run of the 5G service will go live in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kano, Oweri, and Maiduguri, with subscribers in the aforementioned regions gaining access to faster Internet speed.
Recall that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had set August as the target date for the roll out of 5G mobile network in the country after MTN and Mafab Communications won the bid for the deployment.
MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications had bid alongside Airtel Nigeria for the 5G spectrum, but Airtel dropped out of the 11 rounds bid that took place in December 2021.
Earlier this week, Mafab Communications said it will not meet the NCC August 24, 2022 deadline for the 5G rollout, which was yesterday. It however, secured an extra five months from the telecommunications regulator to get its house in order and launch the new generation network by January 2023.
MTN in a statement, yesterday, said it’s 5G service would be live at over 500 sites across the country by October.
Checks by NaijaTimes showed that telco service provider has already started selling its 5G broadband router for its customers to be able to access the network as there are currently limited devices that can connect with the 5G network.
Confirming the deployment, Modupe Kadri, CFO, MTN Nigeria, stated on LinkedIn, “Yes today we turned on the 5G spectrum and kicked off our 5G pilot. 20,000 customers with enabled devices can now try out our next-generation network where coverage is available.”
“2G brought us SMS and picture messaging. 3G was about mobile internet access. 4G made streaming and sharing a part of everyday life. 5G delivers the future and it’s here – higher internet speeds, downloads without delay, near-instant connection when streaming, using apps, loading websites, playing games, or connecting to smart home devices,” she added
Some users of the network affirmed that the internet speeds of up to 1.4g per second on the 5G network.
With MTN Nigeria’s switch to the network spectrum Nigeria joins South Africa and Kenya in the race to 5G on the African continent. South Africa began its 5G network journey in March through MTN and Vodacom, while Kenya started the deployment of 5G through Safaricom in April.
According to the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), around 70 countries had 5G networks as of June this year, up from just 38 in mid-2020. It stated that approximately 15 more have had 5G mobile technology deployed in part.
NaijaTimes reports that a vital advantage of 5G is the number of use cases it will enable and the emerging technologies it will facilitate.
This rides on its ability to provide wireless broadband services at Gigabit speeds and data connections well above 10 Gigabits per second, latency below five milliseconds and the capability to exploit any available wireless resource, from Wi-Fi to 4G and to handle millions of connected devices simultaneously
5G technology will support the development of new applications which will connect devices and allow innovative applications and business models due to its software virtualization abilities.
The NCC in the National Policy document on 5G Networks for Nigeria’s Digital Economy had identified a number of use cases of 5G technology.
These include enhancements in application areas such as Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, Drones, Advanced Communication Systems, Cloud, 3D Printing, Mixed Reality, Simulation/Imaging and Gamification.
“These application areas will impact and create new improvements in areas such as Manufacturing, Transportation, Public Services, Health and Social Works, Agriculture, Energy, Logistics, Media and Entertainment, Mining and Quarrying, Machinery and Equipment, Automotive, Education, Information and Communication, Urban Infrastructure, Consumer experience, Sports, Semiconductor Technologies, etc,” the document read in part.
To drive the revolution, NCC is under the mandate to encourage stakeholders to provide innovative solutions and partner with National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and other relevant agencies to facilitate the adoption of these technologies.
The Commission is also under the mandate to collaborate with relevant agencies of government to support MSMEs and provide suitable enabling environments that foster innovation and creativity.
It will also continue to collaborate with the academia and research institutions to fund research proposals that encourage the development of innovative solutions based on 5G.
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