East Africa’s Telecommunications giant; Safaricom, has announced its launch of 5G connectivity technology testing for its users in Kenya. The tests will begin with both its enterprise users and individual users in Kakamega, Nairobi, Kisii, and Kisumu.
The tests will make the telecommunications company; Safaricom, the first operator to offer 5G services in the region. It is also the 3rd mobile network service provider in Africa to launch its very own 5G services on the continent. Vodacom and MTN announced and launched their 5G services in South Africa in 2020.
Safaricom as part of the tests, is looking to grow to more than 150 5G sites. These 150 5G sites, will cut across 9 towns over a period of the next 12 months.
The main goal of the test period by Safaricom, is to ensure that its users will be able to enjoy speeds of up to 700 Megabits Per Second (Mbps). It intends to further increase said speeds from 700 Megabits Per Second (Mbps) to 1,000 Megabits Per Second (Mbps) in the following months.
The telecommunications company; Safaricom, has experienced a growth in its web data revenue by more than 3 times in the last 5 years from 17.9 billion Kenyan Shillings (160 million United States Dollars) in 2015 when it first launched its 4G network, to 49.6 billion Kenyan Shillings (450 million United States Dollars) in 2020.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Safaricom; Peter Ndegwa stated on the 26th of March 2021 that, “Today marks a major milestone for the country. With 5G, we aim to empower our customers with super-fast internet at work, at home and when on the move, supplementing our growing fibre network. At Safaricom, we are proud to be the first in the country and the region to bring this latest innovation to both our retail and enterprise customers empowering them to start exploring new opportunities that 5G provides.”
For its technology partners Safaricom chose Huawei and Nokia as its two technology partners. Both technology partners, will be helping the telecommunications giant implement the roll out of its 5G network. For Safaricom’s mobile internet users it’s 5G network, will only be available on a number of select 5G smartphones from Huawei, Nokia, and Samsung.
Safaricom has also made it known that it intends to expand the speeds of its 5G network service, to even higher than 1,000 Megabits Per Second (Mbps) during the later stages of its tests.
The 5G network is able to support up to 1 million connected devices per every square kilometre. 4G on the other hand, is only able to support up to 100,000 connected devices over a similar area that is; per every square kilometre.
What this means is that the 5G network is much more tailored for the provision of much more superior internet speeds in areas that are seen as high density. It also means that it is tailored for the connecting of thousands of devices including, supply chain management for businesses, as well as manufacturing.
For the 6 months period which ended on the 30th of September 2020 the telecommunications company; Safaricom, made it known that it achieved a mobile data revenue of 203.7 million United States Dollars. This signifies a 14.1 percent increase which was as a result of an increase in its monthly active mobile data subscribers.
Safaricom’s revenue from voice however dropped by 6.5 percent to 368.7 million United States Dollars. This is as a result of an increase in the use of voice services like WhatsApp which are more data or internet focused or oriented.
Observers believe that the launch of this 5G tests, will help to maintain the growth in the mobile data revenue sector.
The telecommunications behemoth; Safaricom, has not yet revealed the prices of its 5G data plans. It is however expected that the said 5G data plans will be considerably much more expensive than the 4G data plans available now. This expectation, has led to concerns over affordability of the 5G data plans for the more than 38 million Internet subscribers in Kenya.
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