5G Network: Africa will be ready in 5 years – MTN Chief

MTN’s Chief Executive Officer, Rob Shuter has said Africa will be likely ready for the 5G super-fast technology in about five years from now.

Shuter who was appointed in July 2018, spoke at a telecoms conference in Durban recently, saying that though the technology, which is still going through its final test stages, will be for a select few of those who need it, as the current 3 and 4G networks are still very good enough for phone use.

The 5G technology which will provide data speeds up to 50 or 100 times faster than current 4G networks, will also rely on denser arrays of small antennas and the cloud for efficiency purposes.

He explained to Reuters; “This is the technology that would be used for very specific cases.

“It would not be a technology for everybody because most people don’t need it, your phone works fine on just 3G.

“What we are doing now is to learn from the technology and get our network ready for it but I think 3G is much more relevant in most of our markets.

“You also need the equipment itself. So right now there is no 5G handsets and even the routers that can receive 5G network are very few and very expensive.”