Nigeria’s second fifth generation (5G) technology services provider, Mafab Communications Limited, has said its long-term plan is to roll out services across the country starting with six cities.
The operator, which won the 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum in 2021 alongside MTN Nigeria, rolled out services in Abuja and Lagos last week.
An official of the service provider currently trading Mcom, Adebayo Onigbanjo, who spoke on the sidelines of the Lagos rollout over the weekend, said the company is in six cities and would focus on data and voice.
“As I have said, we are in six cities and rollout is ongoing. So, it’s difficult to tell you the specific numbers of base transceiver stations (BTS), but our plan is to roll out across the country. I had indicated that voice is from day one, and the opportunity that exists being able to do voice on the infrastructure. So, there’s something called National Roaming, which will allow us to offer customer voice service from day one.
“We will continue to be on the 5G infrastructure. If you look at the other operators that have rolled out 5G, you don’t have 5G nationwide, right, they put 5G in specific places. And we’re going to do the same as well identify markets that we’re going to go after, (use) the base stations in those areas, and then of course, continue to expand as traffic grows,” Onigbanjo said.
Speaking on the strategy of the company to have a bite of the share of the market, considering that it is launching months after an incumbent, MTN Nigeria, launched, Onigbanjo said the company will focus on the end user experience which will be robust.
“So our hope is our quality of service, the type of service we provide, the partners that we bring to the market to allow people to see that, look, we’re offering an alternative. And that’s what we’re asking people to do. Consider an alternative to what you have today.
“We’ve talked about data. If we talk about voice, voice centric spectrums, they would have been incredibly challenging, almost impossible. Okay, well, 5G is the first technology that actually says I am designed for data. Okay, so that gave us the opportunity when we looked at the business model to say it doesn’t make sense to come into Nigeria at this point in time. So that’s the first thing, the technology that we have, is actually suited for what we want.
“So that’s the first thing. The second thing is, Nigeria still needs significant amount of data.
“We’ve not even scratched the surface all of you probably have multiple dongles. You don’t experience the type of things you want. He’s trying to look at WhatsApp status. We’ve had GSM in Nigeria for how long, so there is still so much room for data,”Onigbanjo said.
According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mafab Communications operates under three licences: Interconnect Data Exchange (IDE); International Data Access (IDA) and Value Added Service (VAS) and Unified Access Service Licence (UASL).
According to the rollout timetable for 5G, the operators were expected to complete band clearance and commencement of rollout. By June, operators were expected to roll out service in at least two cities in each geo-political zone while in June 2024, they were expected to roll out service in at least six states in each geo-political zone. In June 2025, the roll out is expected to have been achieved in the six geo-political zones.
At the end of 2021, China led other 10 countries with the largest number of connected cities to 5G with 376 while the United States followed with 284. The Philippines followed with 95 cities while South Korea had 85 cities. Canada had 81 cities running on 5G while Finland had 72. The others are Spain with 68, Italy-60, United Kingdom-56, Saudi Arabia 37 and Australia 37.
Nigeria completed 5G trials in November 2019 while in December last year the country auctioned two lots of 100 megahertz (Mhz) frequencies in the 3.5Ghz Spectrum (C-Band) for commercial 5G deployment.
The two lots ranges from 3500Mhz – 3600Mhz and 3700Mhz – 3800Mhz while both companies completed full payment of the final bid amount ($273.6million) per lot before the end February 24, last year, which was the date line issued by the Commission.
Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, NCC, Prof Garba Danbatta said the goal of the Commission is that Nigeria becomes one of the leading nations with 5G technology deployed in a manner that is beneficial to all stakeholders and contributes maximally to the Digital Economy Policy of the Federal Government.
Director, Technical Standards and Network Integrity at NCC, Bako Wakil, however identified challenges facing the nation as well as the industry to include inflation and foreign exchange rate volatility, quality and adequate power supply as the world moves to go green, devices affordability and many others.
He said the inability of the between 500 and 1,000 megabytes per second (Mbps) capacity from traditional microwaves to meet the 20 gigabytes per second (Gbps)demand of 5G calls for stepping-up into the E-band spectrum.
Wakil said to fiberise the towers/base stations, the issue of Right-of-Way (RoW) must be well addressed, adding that subjecting the barrage of IoT devices to the Type Approval within a limited timeframe is another daunting challenge.
Allaying the fears of people who think 5G will disenfranchise them from the network, he said the 5G network will co-exist with its predecessor generation of wireless networks.
“In most parts of the world, the successor generation of mobile networks does not supplant the predecessor generation networks, until when it becomes very necessary to decommission the oldest generation network. While 4G is H2M interaction, 5G is M2M interaction.
He said 1ms latency is a unique feature of 5G when compared with the human brain that takes 10ms to process information. For example, he said doctors can do a CT scan remotely, users watching AR/VR based entertainment while it is good for factories using instant data to tweak production processes.
Driverless cars, he said, can avoid obstacles almost instantly with the technology.
According to Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), more than 18 African countries are either evaluating/testing/trialing or deploying a 5G network as of 2021.
South Africa was the first African country to launch a commercial 5G network while Kenya has completed 5G trials and launched commercial 5G last year.
MTN Uganda had demonstrated the 5G network in January 2020.