Safaricom High Speed 5G Network: Safaricom is set to launch its high speed 5G network for commercial use by December this year. This comes six months after the leading telecommunications firm activated Kenya’s first 5G internet. So far, the high speed 5G network has been available in Nairobi, Kisumu, Kisii, and Kakamega.
According to chief executive officer Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom will increase its sites for the high speed network to 200 by the end of December 2021. “This year is a trial phase and we intend to have 150 to 200 sites coming from the first use case of homes, especially in places where we do not have fibre,” said Ndegwa. “We will be able to test on such areas and help customers in terms of speed and reliability and from next year we can be able to commercialize a bit faster but I will come with that at the appropriate time.”
What does this high speed internet portend for Kenya that makes it so groundbreaking? According to Qualcomm, 5G is designed to deliver peak data rates up to 20 Gbps based on IMT-2020 requirements. Qualcomm Technologies’ flagship 5G solutions, the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X65 is designed to achieve up to 10 Gbps in downlink peak data rates. But 5G is about more than just how fast it is. In addition to higher peak data rates, 5G is designed to provide much more network capacity by expanding into new spectrum, such as mmWave.
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5G can also deliver much lower latency for a more immediate response and can provide an overall more uniform user experience so that the data rates stay consistently high—even when users are moving around.
The 5G technology can easily act as an alternative to Home Fibre and Fibre for Business services, targeting customers in places where Safaricom is yet to roll out its fibre network. Enterprise and Home Internet customers on the service will be provided with a 5G router. Additionally, the 5G service will be available on mobile phones beginning with the Huawei.
5G can support up to 1 million connected devices per square kilometre compared to 4G which can only support up to 100,000 connected devices in a similar area. This makes 5G suitable for providing super-fast internet speeds in high density areas and for linking thousands of connected devices such as in a manufacturing and supply chain management for businesses.
Safaricom now set to launch commercial 5G network
Nokia and Huawei have been chosen as the two technology partners to implement the roll out of Safaricom’s 5G network. For mobile internet customers, the service will be available on select 5G smartphones from Samsung, Huawei and Nokia, all available at Safaricom Shops. The company has also revealed plans to later increase 5G internet speeds beyond 1,000 Mbps in later stages of the trial.