By Aaron Ukodie
MTN Nigeria stepped out today to prove that voice, data and other digital services could be served Nigerians on the 5G technology platform. Its lead came ahead three others, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat, which a Nigerian Communication Commission official, said were not ready yet to go into the fray.
MTN ‘s 5G technology trial in Abuja today came with fanfare at the MTN Abuja Office, Maitama, were several government officials and MTN Nigeria chiefs witnessed the occasion.
The Honourable Minister of Communication and digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta and former Executive Vice chairman of NCC and Chairman of MTN Nigeria Dr Ernest Ndukwe were some of the dignitaries that witnessed the event.
Officials of some system suppliers, such as Huawei were also on ground at the trial.
NCC’s director of Public Affairs, Dr Henry Nkemadu, told eWorldNews that the success of the trial would determine the next line of action the Commission would take on the roadmap for the adoption of the 5G technology which several countries are currently adopting.
The adoption of 5G in Nigeria, hopefully sometimes around 2020, if current trials prove successful, would not suspend the deployment of the 4G network across the country.
In other countries where 5G is now being deployed, the services are limited to selected cities and areas, and that would be the roadmap that Nigeria would adopt.
It is not clear yet the path the NCC would follow in licensing the deployment of 5G, which is bringing huge revenues to countries that have adopted it.
5G will bring higher capacity than the existing 4G network. It is expected to increase the data rates beyond 1gb per second and will provide higher broadband density to the users.it is estimated that peak download rate of data will be of 20/Gbits and upload rate will be of 10G/bits. There will be low latency and low battery consumption while using 5G that means it will increase the battery life upto 10 years and reduce network energy usage by 90%. Several hundreds and thousands of computers will be able to access simultaneous connections at a very high rate. Spectral efficiency will also be increased in 5Gnetwork.
5Gnetwork will benefit the telecommunication sector to a great extent. It will provide better usage of smartphones by increasing their speed. It will introduce VR( virtual reality) and AR( Augmented reality) in smartphone sector.
The technology will also bring a biggest change by starting the era of driverless smart cars and smart homes.
