{"id":28709,"date":"2019-09-04T11:19:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T10:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=28709"},"modified":"2019-09-06T10:15:28","modified_gmt":"2019-09-06T09:15:28","slug":"nokia-on-the-potential-of-5g-technology-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/09\/04\/nokia-on-the-potential-of-5g-technology-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Nokia on the potential of 5G technology in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The potential of 5G lies in its ability to transform the way people live and work as well as the way industries operate.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Africa is as capable of embracing the huge potential of mobile technology as the rest of the world, even within the limitations of existing infrastructure and complex connectivity challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Industries have\nadopted 2G, 3G and 4G in incremental steps as these technologies have evolved\nwithin the constraints of legacy technologies and capabilities. Now, 5G is\nintroducing an opportunity for the industry to embrace growth and innovation.\nBut only if it is done with a clear focus on what 5G can realistically deliver\nand a clear eye on the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo fully capitalise\non 5G, the industry has to re-architecture the networks because new services\nwill not only be about high bandwidth but also about low latency,\u201d said Deon\nGeyser, Head of the Southern Africa subregion at Nokia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe future is about\nensuring that systems and solutions are \u2018always on\u2019 and intelligent, providing\nindustry verticals with the ability to fully recognise the capabilities of\nautomation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There have been some\nconcerns around how quickly 5G could become a reality within the African\ncontext due to legacy network infrastructure issues and connectivity in many\nareas remaining limited. However, a significant percentage of local networks\nhave already started to explore how they can capitalise on 5G and commercialise\ntheir 5G in non-standalone architecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt has become clear\nthat great 5G runs on top of great 4G,\u201d said Geyser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn non-standalone\narchitecture, the 5G control information goes through the LTE eNodeBs and the\nthroughput can tap the resources of 5G and 4G through dual connectivity. This\nmeans that if you have the best performing 4G network, you are already ahead of\nthe game in 5G.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A recent\nstudy conducted by RootMetrics confirmed that 62% of the Nokia-powered LTE\nnetworks operated by one of the big four \u2013 Sprint, AT&amp;T, T-Mobile, and\nVerizon \u2013 in the United States, delivered the fastest or second-fastest network\nspeed. This RootMetric score is highly relevant in the context of 5G as the\nbest LTE network performance is the foundation for the best 5G. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FWA (Fixed Wireless\nAccess) is a potential 5G use case in Africa, especially where deploying fibre\nfor the last mile is either practically difficult or too expensive. 5G can\nprovide high throughput for the home broadband through FWA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If positioned\nproperly, 5G can introduce the opportunity for enterprises in various industry\nverticals to look towards implementing inventive solutions that could\nfundamentally change how they operate. Nokia has already invested in numerous\n5G use cases that have allowed communities to overcome ongoing obstacles to\ngrowth and development and for organisations to build sustainable solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have developed a\nsolution that creates an immersive education experience for learners with\nlimited access to textbooks,\u201d added Geyser. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWith this, children\ncan access remote and enhanced teacher training using online tools and\nplatforms. &nbsp;Virtual Reality (VR) can be used to train teachers and\nstudents and provides them with visually immersive aids that change how they\nengage with learning materials. This is not the only way in which 5G and\nartificial intelligence (AI) can be used to address the challenges of Africa,\nbut it is one that remains hugely necessary and relevant as education is\ncritical to the future of the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In agriculture, 5G enables the innovative use of the Internet of Things (IoT) in solving the challenges that face farmers on the continent. Issues such as crop disease, pests and drought have a huge impact on agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and, according to CAB International, pests and crop disease-account for around half of the total crop losses in developing countries. 5G technology can potentially help the farmers navigate these ongoing challenges intelligently and sustainably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cUsing IoT and 5G, we\ncan arm farmers with more detailed data about their farms and the macro environment,\nthereby assisting them with crop planning and minimising risks,\u201d said Geyser. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis technology has\nenormous potential for the growth of industries on the continent and there is\nno reason why Africa can\u2019t make the most from its potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNokia is the only 5G vendor with an end-to-end portfolio\nand a truly global presence. As of the end of August, Nokia has signed 45 5G\ncommercial agreements. Today, Nokia 5G technology is used to provide live\ncommercial services by operators across North America, Asia, Europe, and the\nMiddle East. With our end-to-end 5G portfolio and truly global presence, well we are positioned and committed\nto unlocking new opportunities and further socio-economic development in the\nAfrican continent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The potential of 5G lies in its ability to transform the way people live and work as well as the way industries operate. Africa is as capable of embracing the huge potential of mobile technology as the rest of the world, even within the limitations of existing infrastructure and complex connectivity challenges. Industries have adopted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":28712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[298,103,382,10675,13,262],"tags":[6679,1063,165,871,385,496,386,10895,10898,8444,8446,10738,155,390,10897,1003,10894,3446,6446,682],"class_list":["post-28709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-story-newsletter","category-mobile","category-telecom","category-thought-leadership","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-2g","tag-3g","tag-4g","tag-5g","tag-africa","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-att","tag-cab-international","tag-deon-geyser","tag-fixed-wireless-access","tag-fwa","tag-internet-of-things","tag-iot","tag-lte-enodebs","tag-nokia","tag-rootmetrics","tag-sprint","tag-verizon","tag-virtual-reality"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28714,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28709\/revisions\/28714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}