MTN 5G - Afrikan Heroes

At Last, Nigeria Launches 5G Network

August 25, 2022

The much anticipated launch of Fifth Generation (5G) network by Nigeria has taken place. It was a historic moment for Nigerian telecoms as MTN Nigeria Wednesday officially turned on its fifth-generation (5G) mobile internet services at 190 sites across the country, with the main concentration of sites in Lagos and Abuja.

Some users in these areas are reportedly already experiencing internet speeds greater than 1.4GBs per second. The country’s National Communication Commission (NCC) had previously set Wednesday 24 August as the date for the rollout of 5G after nearly 3 years of preparation from the Federal Government.

Nigeria now joins South Africa and Kenya as the three African nations to launch 5G services. South Africa received 5G first in 2019 through a humble rollout by provider Rain, while Kenya saw Safaricom launch its first 5G services in March 2021. In the rest of the continent, Ghana and Egypt are hot on the heels of these three nations, expecting a rollout sooner rather than later.

Nigeria’s 5G deployment has lagged compared to contemporary economies due to regulations and a bloated spectrum auctioning approval processes. In July 2021, Nigerians were still waiting on the Federal Government to approve the technology’s deployment even as the NCC claimed it was ready for the rollout.

Approval finally came in September. The NCC held its first 5G spectrum auction in December 2021, where MTN and Mafab Communications were awarded licenses.

While MTN has managed to launch its 5G per the scheduled time, Mafab has reportedly been given a five-month extension for its rollout of 5G in the country. Both MTN and Mafab had to pay a combined $550-million for licenses as early as February.

By October, MTN Nigeria expects to increase the rollout of 5G sites exponentially, taking the superfast internet to 500 – 600 more sites across Africa’s most populous nation.

Not every user will be able to use 5G as of today, however, as certain software updates are required by mobile devices, other devices may not be able to use the service at all.

However, only Nigerian Samsung and Apple users may only be able to take advantage of 5G services after 6 weeks (Samsung) or even after October (Apple) as manufacturers will need to deliver their respective upgrades.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

MTN Sees Great Promises in 5G Test Run in South Africa

July 4, 2020

Africa’s leading telecoms company Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN) says its Fifth Generation (5G) tests in South Africa using its first 100 5G high sites offering commercial 5G mobile broadband shows tremendous results. Company sources say that tests runs from the network achieved significant speeds at all locations visited, all well above 300Mbit/s and one close to 800Mbit/s.

To get an idea of the performance of the network, some of the reporters drove to various places in Johannesburg’s north-western suburbs where MTN said it has 5G coverage, including Northwold, Boskruin, Honeydew and Sundowner. (MTN also has coverage in the Bryanston and Fourways areas in Johannesburg, but they confined our testing to the north-western areas.)

Using a 5G-capable Huawei P40 Pro, supplied by MTN, to do the speed tests they recorded to enable “NR”, or “New Radio”, in the mobile network settings before we could get a 5G carrier. They used the Ookla’s Speedtest software which is the gold standard for testing Internet speeds, both mobile and fixed, they found that on Ookla’s Speedtest application for Android. All tests were conducted inside a stationary vehicle and the Ookla software was left to determine the best server to connect to.

The best download speed outside the Northwold Spar on Elnita Avenue in Randburg – 789Mbit/s – followed closely by a test at the Shell filling station on Taurus Avenue in Sundowner (783Mbit/s). We also achieved our best upload speed in Sundowner: 117Mbit/s. See our test results in the screenshots below.

Latency, or network round-trip times, was also very good, and akin to what one normally sees on fixed fibre broadband connections. Ping times were always less than 10ms in our testing. All these results go to show that the 5G network will truly shake things up when fully operational across the country.

Kelechi Deca