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Telcos must get serious about 5G

Simnikiwe Mzekandaba
By Simnikiwe Mzekandaba, IT in government editor
Cape Town, 26 May 2016
It's not too early for telcos to start thinking and focusing on plans to deploy 5G, says an IDC analyst.
It's not too early for telcos to start thinking and focusing on plans to deploy 5G, says an IDC analyst.

It's not too early for telcos to start thinking about plans to roll out 5G, says an industry analyst.

Paul Black, IDC director of telecoms and networking for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey, made the comments during his presentation on ICT transformation trends, at the 2016 Huawei Middle East and Africa Services Summit in Cape Town.

"Telcos tend to be quite slow and need to reinvent themselves. Telcos must become businesses of the future," he commented, adding that ICT transformation is not happening fast enough.

"If you are not thinking about 5G, you need to start thinking about it in your plans, especially in terms of the Internet of things.

"5G is a worldwide issue as operators do need to transform in order to really go through digital transformation. 5G is going to be the necessary step forward to bring these services to fruition," he said.

In respect of the African operators in certain countries where there is still a prevalence of 2G, 3G and not even 4G in a lot of areas, now is probably not the time to jump on that, Black noted.

"When you looking at the whole digital expansion, looking into the role of the Internet of Things, enterprise mobility and the delivery of these solutions - 5G is going to be required ultimately. The operators may start thinking about it in their plans but it may be too long off."

Last year, the GSM Association (GSMA) mobile economy report revealed that as of June 2015, 4G networks had been launched in 23 countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

"4G is still at a nascent phase in the region, accounting for just less than 1% of the connection base, compared to a global average of 11%. Factors limiting 4G adoption in the region include network coverage, unavailability of 4G spectrum, an underdeveloped device ecosystem, and the resultant high costs of ownership of mobile data connections," according to the report.

The report added: "4G is gaining traction in several early adopter markets, particularly Angola, Mauritius, Namibia and SA."

In SA, three of the country's mobile operators ? Vodacom, MTN and Cell C ? have taken further steps, conducting LTE-Unlicensed trials. Last week, in partnership with Huawei, MTN conducted a commercial trial for 4.5G, which saw the operator hit 1Gbps mobile throughput.

4G adoption for the region as a whole is expected to rise to account for 6% of connections by 2020, according to the GSMA report.

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