Ahead of the 2020 set date for the roll out of 5G networks in Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) will look at three strategic areas of interest that will be beneficial to the country, cum Africa.These areas of focus include enhanced mobile broadband applications, the low ultra-reliable, low latency applications and the Machine to Machine application.
According to NCC, Nigeria and other part of Africa will subscribe quickly to the enhanced mobile broadband application.
The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, while responding to questions at the just concluded ITU Telecoms World in Budapest, Hungary, said the reason for this was because African countries are trying to roll out broadband infrastructure for broadband applications. “So this will spur us on to ensure we put in place the necessary infrastructure,” he stressed.
In terms of readiness of the Continent 5G evolution, Danbatta said Nigeria and other countries within the region are trying to reserve the spectrum for the roll out of broadband services.Specifically, Danbatta said in Nigeria, the focus is on 26, 38 and 42 GHz. He noted that these frequencies exist and are not licensed for any other application.
According to him, the country is waiting in anticipation for the standardization process to be completed at the World Radio Communication (WRC) in Egypt, then we will see how we can go forward with licensing process in the three frequencies.
“The other important step that African countries are taking is to address new forms of social anxiety occasioned by this emerging technology, 5G. There’s also the regulatory anxiety. And therefore to do that, because of the practice we had in the past every service we deploy is normally preceded by proof of concept trial. And the 5G is not an exception definitely there’s going to be the trial as preparations are underway for this important trial to take place, “ Danbatta stressed.
The NCC EVC pointed out that the whole idea behind the trial is to be able see what are the challenges, including security, levels of radiation, power density, whether this is within the acceptable limits provided for the international non-ionization radio regulatory agencies as well as to ensure whatever factors that we need to come to terms with preparatory to commercial deployment of services, which are identified in readiness for commercial roll out of services using 5G.
Credit: The Guardian
