Safaricom CEO, Peter Ndegwa (C), with ICT CS Joe Mucheru and Ag Director General ICT Mercy Wanjau. On March 26, Safaricom launched its fifth-generation (5G) mobile network, the first in East Africa.
The network, which improves on the 4G, will be initially available in Nairobi, Kisumu, Kisii and Kakamega. Later, it will find its way into more towns.
According to the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA), 5G networks are likely to cover one-third of the world’s population by 2025.
“The impact on the mobile industry and its customers will be profound. 5G is more than a new generation of technologies; it denotes a new era in which connectivity will become increasingly fluid and flexible,” GSMA says. KEEP READING
“5G networks will adapt to applications and performance will be tailored precisely to the needs of the user.”
The 5G network can support heavy internet traffic at super-fast speeds. It can support up to a million connected devices per square kilometre, compared to 4G which can only support up to 100,000 connected devices in a similar area.
But users will have to upgrade their SIM cards to 5G and also their handsets to those fitted with a 5G chip.
Initially, as Peter Ndegwa, the Safaricom chief executive admitted during the launch, such devices may be expensive.
Transmission speeds
The 5G in Kenya is expected to hit transmission speeds of 1Gbps and could eventually approach a mind-boggling 20Gbps.
That speed is already very high and helps one to access files, programmes and remote applications faster, and with no buffering.A UK mobile technology website, 4G.co.uk, writes that 4G offers maximum real-world download speeds of up to 100Mbps, making it over 20 times faster than 3G. At 1Gbps, 5G makes a mockery of these speeds.5G offers users very low latency — the time between which a user makes a command to the time the web application responds to that action.The new network reduces the latency in 4G by over 10 times.“Thanks to this low latency and the increase of the sensors, it is possible to control the machinery of an industrial plant…or the complete control of remote transport systems, automated and without drive,” writes the IOT Solutions World Congress.5G also creates subnets, which are logical subdivisions of an IP network. An IP network is a group of computers connected via their unique internet protocol (IP) addresses.Subnetting gives specific characteristics to a part of the network and will allow prioritising of […]