Vodacom launches live 5G network in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town
Vodacom announced that it has launched Africa’s first live 5G mobile network in three major cities with South Africa namely, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town.
This network supports both mobile and fixed-wireless services, and is currently available on 20 live 5G sites – 18 of which are in Gauteng, and 2 in Cape Town.
Vodacom said 5G offers many benefits over 4G, which include faster speeds, lower latency, better reliability, and more network capacity.
These include:
- Faster speeds – In comparison to 4G, peak speeds on 5G will increase significantly. 5G will enable fibre-like speeds using the mobile network.
- Lower latency – In comparison to 4G where latencies are typically between 20-30 milliseconds, 5G can support latencies as low as 1 millisecond.
- More network capacity – 5G uses spectrum in a much more efficient manner than 4G technology and is able to fit more data into the same amount of spectrum.
Vodacom noted that it was recently assigned temporary spectrum by ICASA for the duration of the national state of disaster.
This spectrum included 50MHz in the 3.5GHz band, which has been used to fast-track its 5G launch.
Vodacom and Liquid Telecom also concluded managed network services and national roaming agreements for a national 5G network in December 2019.
The deployment of 5G will help Vodacom manage the 40% increase in mobile network traffic and the 250% increase in fixed traffic experienced during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The network noted that it has plans to further roll out the 5G network to other parts of the country.
Written by: Staff Writer.
Guzzle Media
