Nigeria is the first country in West Africa to experiment with 5G technology and applications, according to MTN Nigeria, a multinational mobile telecommunications company.
The company disclosed this in a statement issued on Monday.
It said that the success of the 5G experiment was indicative that the cellular network technology “has the potential to support key socio-economic objectives Nigeria has set for itself, and to be a key contributor to the emergence of a fully digital economy.”
The telecom giant also disclosed that the achievement was possible as a result of the partnership between the ministry of communications and digital economy, the Nigerian Communications Commission, (NCC), MTN Nigeria, Huawei (Abuja), ZTE (Calabar) and Ericsson (Lagos.)
It added that the demonstration would be carried out for three months in four major cities in the country including Calabar and Lagos, deploying the trial spectrum granted to MTN by the NCC.
“This immersive demo and experience will travel across three Nigerian cities to showcase the capabilities of 5G and its potential to enable economic growth, and social inclusion,” the statement read.
“By working together, MTN and its partner – Huawei, were able to provide a glimpse into a range of 5G use cases and applications at a test Lab designed to show proof-of-concept in Abuja.
“3D holographic communication has potential applications for education, medical imaging, video conferencing and gaming, and requires about four times as much data as a streamed 4K video.
“That means that 5G is best suited to support this kind of application on a mobile network and to enable its use.
“It also demonstrates how 5G has the potential to support key socio-economic objectives Nigeria has set for itself and to be a key contributor to the emergence of a fully digital economy.”
Isa Pantami, minister of communications and digital economy, also spoke on the potential of the 5G for sustainable growth, shortly after taking a tour of the exhibition booths.
“I believe as long as we are able to handle the potential challenges, the deployment of 5G is very critical to our economy because of so many advantages of 5G, the issue of latency, speed and many more,” he said.
