With fourth-generation (4G) technology still a long way off from full or even significant adoption in Nigeria, the biggest telco operating in the country is looking to take things to another level and score yet another first.
MTN Nigeria is showcasing the first live demo of 5G network in Nigeria in an event taking place in Abuja, the Nigerian capital. This comes after an earlier announcement by the telco to commercially roll out 5G in Nigeria before next year.
In July last year, MTN Nigeria announced that it will begin to commercially deploy 5G technology in Nigeria before 2020. This will enable the company to provide better data services at a more affordable cost to its subscribers.
Earlier in 2018, MTN announced at its headquarters in South Africa, that they have begun the first 5G technology applications trial in Africa, in collaboration with network equipment provider, Ericsson.
The completion of MTN’s first 5G technology and application trials in South Africa saw the telco achieve a throughput of over 20Gbps with less than five minutes latency in the 5G trial.
And now the company appears to be finally bringing the technology to its largest market, Nigeria, where the company currently has a 4G license.
MTN claims that the new technology is at least 100 times faster than 4G. When compared to 4G, 5G provides faster data transfer speed and lower latency. Additionally, 5G boasts of improved reliability as well as better support for more devices.
The company claimed to have achieved download speeds of more than 20 gigabits per second in the first trial in South Africa, adding that the 5G trial is based on commercially available baseband hardware and is 5G-mobility supported.
And according to MTN, the speed of 5G is the highest achieved on any mobile network in Africa. In comparison, the 5G technology has 1,000-times the capacity, 100-times the connected device, 100-times the speed, 10-times reliability, and 10-times lower latency than 4G.
“5G will make our life better, drive incremental capacity and open up new businesses. MTN as a company is constantly making efforts to break barriers by democratising voice and data connectivity in order to improve subscriber experience, and has invested over NGN 800 Bn in infrastructure in Nigeria,” said MTN Nigeria’s CEO, Ferdi Moolman, during last year’s announcement.
It is also expected that with an adequate spectrum allocated to the 5G standard, the increased capacity would result in lower data cost to Nigerians.
Source: https://weetracker.com/2019/11/25/mtn-5g-network-demo-nigeria/