5G Network in Ghana & Africa

As South Korea and the US, both claiming to be the first to launch the ultra-fast network commercially, with Sweden, Estonia, China, Japan and Turkey planning commercial launches by 2020, 5G is the fifth generation of cellular technology, bringing ultra-fast bandwidth speeds and massive connectivity for devices.

What does it hold for Africa?

The Communications Minister of Ghana, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has revealed that Ghana is at the threshold of moving from 4G to the ultra-fast 5G network spectrum.

Ursula Owusu stated that the deployment of 5G should be viewed by telecommunication companies as an evolution that builds on all spectrum asset adding that service providers need to be able to make the best use of the latest internet innovation.

The Communication Minister has argued that although it will take a while for Africa to experience the full potential of 5G, her outfit is in talks with some major mobile phone brands, to begin with, trials in Ghana. Currently, Ghana top telecom providers both MTN & Vodafone run on the 4G network, while other telecommunication such as AirtelTigo and Glo still use the 3G network.

According to Ericsson, commercial mobile 5G will start to roll out in the Middle East and Africa region in 2019 and will be widely deployed in 2020 and 2021, last year MTN Group in partnership with Ericsson claimed to have successfully conducted a network trial on 5G in South Africa, so it’s likely that South Africa could be the first African county to roll out 5G network before the end of 2019.