Nigeria telecommunications giant, MTN has launched the much anticipated Fifth-Generation(5G) mobile network across 190 locations in Nigeria in line with Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC’s) approval.
Fifth-Generation (5G) mobile network has gone live at 190 locations across Nigeria, with MTN becoming the first telecommunications provider in the country to launch the much anticipated mobile network in the country.
Newssphere learnt that the 190 locations that have gone live with 5G service in city centres in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kano, Owerri and Maiduguri.
Recall that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had set the target of August for the roll out of 5G mobile network in the country after MTN and Mafab Communications won the bid for the deployment.
While Mafab had been granted a grace period of 5 months to deploy, MTN has said it’s 5G service would be live at over 500 sites across the country by October.
This is as MTN commenced selling a 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.
With the launch by MTN, Nigeria has joined 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 2022, up from just 38 in mid-2020. It stated that approximately 15 more have had 5G mobile technology deployed in part.
Newssphere gathered 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.