5G roll out in Africa set to accelerate

Wallace Ruzvidzo in DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

The rolling out of the fifth-generation (5G) mobile communications technology is set to accelerate in Africa as efforts are made to eliminate the digital divide, with the goal of growing the African countries’ economies through deployment of technology.

Zimbabwe is among the first few African countries that have launched the 5G mobile phone technology alongside South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Botswana.

The deployment of 5G to African countries will bring convenience as countries like Zimbabwe, which are already on a development trajectory will be able to fast-track their growth in all areas including agriculture, mining, manufacturing and tourism, among others, as communication networks handle more users and give greater bandwidth and faster communication speeds.

The 5G network has potential to support millions of devices at ultrafast speeds and potential to transform global economies by improving accessibility, extending reach of mobile broadband, while supporting critical sectors such as health, financial, education services sectors as well as manufacturing.

Already, Zimbabwe is angling to tap into the US$2,2 trillion global revenue from the technology by 2034, making 5G the growth engine for Zimbabwe’s economy.

It will encourage the deployment of advanced infrastructure and positively impact the country’s gross domestic product.

While responding to questions from international media organisations yesterday, Huawei’s president of wireless solution Mr Cao Ming said Huawei was committed to introducing growth and modernisation-enforcing technologies to African countries.

“That is why we are dedicated to introducing affordable devices for emerging markets and the products and solutions to the relevant African markets. I think in the next several years 5G deployment in Africa will accelerate.

“I had the pleasure to work in Africa for three years. We have realised that the development of the mobile technologies in different territories are different. For a region or country to choose the generation is a decision that depends on the service needs and economic development state as well as the maturity of the device ecosystem.

“Take South Africa for example. There 5G networks have been deployed in the major cities including Johannesburg and Cape Town, however in many rural areas 3G is still the dominant mobile connectivity. Huawei as a solution provider we are dedicated to providing diverse solutions for different scenarios and all markets,” he said.

Speaking at the ongoing Mobile Broadband Summit, Huawei’s rotating chairman Mr Ken Hu said there was need for countries to fully maximise on their investments in new technology, particularly 5G.

“Over the past four years, we have identified key scenarios for industrial applications, like remote control, video backhaul, machine vision, and positioning, where we can maximise the value of 5G. We have also identified industries like mining, ports, and manufacturing where we can scale up 5G capabilities.

“Looking forward, we have lots of work to do. We need to enhance our capabilities, evolve the technology, create better user experience, scale up in industry, and maximise the value of our investment on 5G,” he said.

Current projections are that by 2025, there will be more than 500 million smart vehicles on the road. With high-bandwidth and low-latency networks, smart vehicles will be able to share information with people, vehicles, roads, and the cloud in real time.

In assisted-driving scenarios, smart vehicles will consume more than 300 gigabytes of data every month for cloud-based model training and weekly algorithm updates. In self-driving scenarios, data consumption will rise by a factor of 100.