Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 37 | Page 46

FEATURE: 5G The potential of 5G lies in its ability to transform the way people live and work as well as the way industries operate. And as Deon Geyser, Head of the Southern Africa subregion at Nokia, tells us, Africa is equally capable of embracing the huge potential of mobile technology as the rest of the world, despite the limitations of its existing infrastructure and complex connectivity challenges. I ndustries have adopted 2G, 3G and 4G in incremental steps as these technologies have evolved within the constraints of legacy technologies and capabilities. Now, 5G is introducing an opportunity for the industry to embrace growth and innovation. But only if it is done with a clear focus on what 5G can realistically deliver and a clear eye on the future. To fully capitalise on 5G, the industry has to re-architecture the networks because new services will not only be about high bandwidth but also about low latency. The future is about ensuring that systems and solutions are ‘always on’ and intelligent, providing industry verticals with the ability to fully recognise the capabilities of automation. There have been some concerns around how quickly 5G could become a reality within the African context due to legacy network infrastructure issues and connectivity in many areas remaining limited. However, a significant percentage of local networks ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// have already started to explore how they can capitalise on 5G and commercialise their 5G in non-standalone architecture. It has become clear that great 5G runs on top of great 4G. In non-standalone architecture, the 5G control information goes through the LTE eNodeBs and the throughput can tap the resources of 5G and 4G through dual connectivity. This means that if you have the best performing 4G network, you are already ahead of the game in 5G. A recent study conducted by RootMetrics confirmed that 62% of the Nokia-powered LTE networks operated by one of the big four – Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon in the United States, delivered the fastest or second- fastest network speed. This RootMetric score is highly relevant in the context of 5G as the best LTE network performance is the foundation for the best 5G. FWA (Fixed Wireless Access) is a potential 5G use case in Africa, especially where deploying fibre for the last mile is either practically difficult or too expensive. 5G can provide high throughput for the home broadband through FWA. If positioned properly, 5G can introduce the opportunity for enterprises in various industry verticals to look towards implementing inventive solutions that could fundamentally change how they operate. Nokia has already invested in numerous 5G use cases that have allowed communities to overcome ongoing obstacles to growth and development and for organisations to build sustainable solutions. We have developed a solution that creates an immersive education experience for learners with limited access to textbooks. With this, children can access remote and enhanced teacher training using online tools and platforms. Virtual Reality (VR) can be used to train teachers and students and provides them with visually immersive aids that change how they engage with learning materials. The potential of 5G in Africa 46 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com