Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
MTN Nigeria has announced that Nigeria has become the first country in West Africa to test run and experience 5G technology potential and applications.
This came as a result of a strong collaboration between the Ministry of Communications Technology and Digital Economy, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), MTN and Huawei (Abuja), ZTE (Calabar) and Ericsson (Lagos).
This immersive trial and experience will travel across three Nigerian cities to showcase the capabilities of 5G and its potential to enable economic growth, and social inclusion.
Speaking shortly after taking a tour of the exhibition booths, Minister of Communication Technology and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Pantami, underlined the potential of 5G for sustainable growth.
“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.”
Stressing the importance of an enabling regulatory framework and protecting telecommunications infrastructure, Mr Pantami stated that on the instruction of the President, he has signed a draft Executive Order declaring telecommunications infrastructure ‘critical national infrastructure’ which has been forwarded to the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation for review.
The Minister further referred to the proposed Executive Order as a short-term measure, stressing that the President has instructed that a proper legislation be facilitated to deal conclusively with threats to telecommunications infrastructure.
On his part, Mr Ferdi Moolman, the Chief Executive Officer, MTN Nigeria, said, “Pushing boundaries is easier when your aspirations are supported by likeminded people.
“We are here today because of the support and guidance of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Nigerian Communications Commission who provided the trial spectrum used for this.”
“Also key to this achievement are our equipment vendors who shared our vision, and whose capabilities were brought to bear in making the 5G trials across the country a reality.
“We are grateful for these partners, our customers and everyone who made it possible. Today’s success underlines the fact that we are good together,” he said.
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.
With the presence of former Super Eagles captain, Joseph Yobo, attendees got to match their skills against an artificial-intelligence powered goalie; immerse themselves in a high-speed, low-latency virtual reality gaming world; experience ultra-high-speed streaming and downloads on 5G devices; and engage in discourse with life-like holographic projections.
