Some stakeholders in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector have stated that Nigeria Information and Communications ecosystem isn’t ready for the 5G network.
Speaking in strong terms against Nigeria readiness for 5G networks was the Managing Director of Nigeria Communications Satelite (NIGCOMSAT), Dr Abimbola Alale at the just concluded 2019 e-Nigeria annual conference held at the International Conference Center, Abuja.
Alale noted that rather deploying the 5G network, efforts must be geared towards deepening connectivity in the rural areas
She stated that Nigeria lacks the infrastructural wherewithal to take this decision now; but rather, it should make use of opportunities available through the deployment of satellite to reach more Nigerians.
“No one is ready for 5G in Nigeria because we don’t have the infrastructure. Over 60 per cent of us reside in the rural area. Now we are talking about digital economy, how do you get the rural area on board?” She quizzed.
She said, “let’s look at what we have right now to give people what they need at the moment. You cannot focus only on fiber, you need satellite,” she stated.
e-Nigeria Conference is the Nation’s flagship IT Conference organized by the federal government and coordinated by NITDA, the Federal Government’s Information Technology (IT) regulatory arm, supervised by the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
This year’s conference was themed: ‘Digital Economy for a Digital Nigeria’.
MTN Nigeria in collaboration with Huawei recently demonstrated a live demo of 5G network in Nigeria at an event that took place in Abuja and Calabar, Cross River state.
The launch of the 5G Network was in line with the telecom giants decision to roll out 5G in other major cities in Nigeria before 2020.
This is coming immediately after the MTN successfully ran a trial of the network in South Africa, achieving 20 Gigabyte per second (Gbps) with less than five minutes latency.
