Ahead of the official launch of 5G services in a Nigeria, MTN Nigeria and Huawei Nigeria Technologies Company Ltd., have installed over 100 fifth generation (5G) mobile technology cell sites in the country to better serve consumers.
Details were revealed at the ‘5G Day: The Future is Coming’ event organised by Huawei Nigeria and MTN Nigeria for fellows of the inaugural Media Innovation Programme holding at the Pan Atlantic University, Lagos, both communications giants, stated that work is ongoing to ensure that Nigerians experience 5G in no distant time.
Recall that MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Limited were awarded the country’s two 100MHz spectrum licences in the 3.5GHz spectrum band for 5G in the auctioned by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) last December and were issued their licences in March 2022 after payment.
MTN has now partnered with Huawei to begin rollout obligations per the NCC’s directive; a six-month period is allowed by the Commission for the 5G licencees to put their acts together ahead, it is expected that any moment from end of August this year, the two winners will announce a formal date for the commercial launch of 5G in Nigeria.
Speaking at the event, director of ICT, Huawei Nigeria, Ashwani Mishra, stated that “4G changed lives, but 5G changes society. 5G will change everything about communications. We are working day and night to give Nigerians a truly 5G experience as we work with our partner, MTN Nigeria.”
The chief marketing officer, MTN Nigeria, Adia Sowho also remarked that 5G will reduce latency (i.e. response time) to allow for real-time communication and improve data transfer, especially upstream speeds.
She also said 5G will bring about ten times increase across such indices as user experience throughout, connection density, and decrease in latency. Also, users are to expect three times spectrum efficiency, a hundred times traffic capacity: driving hyper-densification of network with more small cells, and a hundred times network efficiency optimising network energy consumption with more efficient processing.
Sowho added that MTN’s 5G network will also lead to longer battery life; better indoor coverage in underground, parking garages, cellars; and efficient, simpler hardware and less bandwidth.
Among other benefits is that 5G will accelerate Internet of Things such as smart cities, smart homes, healthcare, transportation, smart manufacturing, cars, agriculture, home appliances, wearables, and energy engagement, she said.
