Over the past five years, sub-Saharan Africa has made enormous strides in providing affordable broadband to its population, writes Rami Osman, director of business development at MediaTek Middle East and Africa.
The World Bank estimates that over 160-million Africans gained broadband internet access between 2019 and 2022, with the vast majority of them using 3G and 4G/LTE mobile broadband services.
This has been transformative for economies throughout the region, empowering people in Africa with improved access to economic, educational, government, healthcare and entertainment opportunities. But this is just the start of the mobile broadband revolution, with accelerated investment in 5G set to unleash the next phase of digitalisation.
This technology gives Sub-Saharan Africa the opportunity to leapfrog, in much the same way that it bypassed analogue landlines to embrace mobile telephony. 5G, offering superior speeds and lower latency to previous versions of the GSM standard, will enable Africa to enjoy a range of economic benefits via faster mobile broadband and fixed-wireless access (FWA).
The GSM Association (GSMA) forecasts that 5G will benefit the Sub-Saharan African economy by $11 billion in 2030, accounting for more than 6% of the overall economic impact of mobile technology by that time. It predicts that Sub-Saharan Africa will have 226 million 5G connections in 2030, equivalent to an adoption rate of 17%.
Empowering Africa’s growth with affordable broadband
The economic spinoffs from 5G start with something as simple as giving more people access to an internet connection that compares favourably to fibre in terms of speed, reliability and latency. Academic studies show that faster internet speeds translate into higher employment and economic investment levels.
This stands to reason, given that a faster and more stable internet connection creates possibilities in remote and home working, e-commerce, and business services.
In addition to allowing African businesses and consumers to better take advantage of today’s digital services and platforms, 5G is key to enabling users to benefit from advances in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). As the World Economic Forum (WEF) argues, 5G is the foundation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
According to WEF: “5G will change the world even more profoundly than 3G and 4G; it will be as revolutionary as electricity or the automobile, benefiting entire economies and entire societies”. It is the technology that will enable sub–Saharan Africa to accelerate its move to the next generation of digital apps and solutions.
Paving the way for smart cities and smart agriculture
According to the WEF, 5G will help supercharge economies by enhancing efficiencies, operational effectiveness, and predictive intelligence across industries. Take agriculture, for example. 5G will enable smart agriculture by monitoring the health of crops and livestock. 5G, AI, and IoT will be the bedrock for Africa’s smart factories, smart cities, and smart grids.
While the momentum behind 5G is growing, the ecosystem has much work to do to realise its promise. Regulators must draw up clear roadmaps that promote competition and investment in 5G infrastructure. Operators will need business cases and capital to drive their investments.
End-users need access to affordable and accessible devices. For our part, we have taken a comprehensive approach to 5G product development to ensure that OEMs can produce cost-effective mobile, home, and workplace devices that are ready for next-generation use cases.
These range from smartphone and notebook chipsets, such as our Dimensity and Kompanio series and Genio IoT solutions, to discrete 5G-centric platforms, such as our T-series solutions for data cards, FWA, and mobile hotspot CPE devices. These platforms offer the best of 5G speeds to support the AI, cloud, and IoT services of the future.
The expansion of 5G in sub-Saharan Africa will be transformative for the region, clearing the way for individuals and businesses to take advantage of innovative technologies such as AI and IoT. However, collaboration across the ecosystem is essential to achieve the full potential of 5G.