Vodacom and Nokia partner to bring 5G to South Africa

Nokia and South African mobile operator Vodacom will partner to trail run 5G network to South Africa.

This is in a bid to support Vodacom’s plan to be the first to launch 5G in the country.

The two companies will sign an agreement that contracts them to jointly conduct lab and network trials of new services through Nokia’s 5G technology.

The partnership will be focusing on expanding digitalisation to the healthcare, energy, manufacturing, mining, media, and transportation industries, as well as consumer services.

Nokia claims that through its 5G portfolio, they will have an early-to-market advantage, allowing them to deliver their promise of multi-Gigabit speeds and ultra-low latency.

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“Quite crucially, Africa is in the middle of a mobile connectivity boom, and as such, 5G will help us to deliver faster internet speeds to our almost 70 million customers across the Group,” commented Chief Technology Officer, Andries Delport.

The Finnish brand will be sharing its newest technologies with Vodacom during workshops and trials, including its MIMO Adaptive Atennas, AirScale Radio Access, AirGlide Cloud-native Core, Multi-Access Edge Computing, and end-to-end Mobile Anyhaul transport networks.

The companies will also be focusing on producing Ultra-HD and virtual reality video services together.