The Nigerian government plans to launch a 5G network in January 2022
The Nigerian government plans to launch a 5G network in January 2022
The Nigerian Federal Government has announced that the country's Fifth Generation (5G) network will be operational by January 2022, in an effort to better monitor public assets against vandalism and other threats. Dr Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, made the announcement on Thursday.
This information was disclosed at a Town Hall Meeting organized by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, in which Mr Ubale Maska, the Commissioner for Technical Services, represented the Minister. The meeting's purpose was to discuss the issue of vandalism against electrical and telecommunications infrastructure.
5G is the fifth generation of mobile networks, and it is the successor to the first, second, third, and fourth generation networks. Higher data speeds, increased reliability, massive network capacity, and increased availability are all expected to be delivered by this global wireless technology.
This long-awaited announcement follows the Federal Government's approval of the deployment of the 5G network, which was announced earlier this month. The rollout of the network will make it easier to manage the 50,000 telecommunications sites that exist across the country.
According to the Minister, the 16,000 mobile network outages that occurred between January and July 2021, affecting operators such as MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9Mobile, were caused by fiber cuts, access denial, and theft, among other things. He went on to say that the protection of telecommunications infrastructure was critical to the overall well-being of the country.
Preceding this announcement, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited to allow for the use of C-Band spectrum to boost 5G services in the country.
At the beginning of this year, Nigerians expressed their concerns about 5G networks, claiming that the networks were responsible for the coronavirus pandemic, as well as religious concerns that the networks were the antichrist.
The Senate then requested that the Federal Government suspend plans to roll out the 5G network for a period of six months while an investigation into potential health risks associated with the technology is conducted by the Senate.
Nigeria will soon be joining the ranks of African countries such as South Africa and Lesotho that have already reaped the benefits of the 5G network, now that everything has been clarified. At the global level, it has already been adopted by a number of countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States.
