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By Chinenye Anuforo
As Nigeria embarks on a journey into the world of 5G wireless networks with MTN Nigeria’s rollout of 5G services last week, telecommunication experts have higlighted the huge socio-economic benefits from the new technology.
With emerging technologies as key enablers opening new opportunities for accelerated productivity and competitiveness in the unfolding of Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the Fifth Generation (5G) wireless technology offers the greatest transformative power to ensure that the Fourth Industrial Revolution realises its full potential through unprecedented connectivity capability.
Experts who spoke to Daily Sun in separate interviews, said the 5G wireless technology remains one of the fastest and most robust technologies the world has ever seen, with its many developments and possibilities inherent in its creation.
“Beyond the speed capability, 5G wireless technology enables a massive Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, where networks can service the communication need of billions of connected devices at once.
That means it will bring connectivity to many more mobile tools, machines and robots, smart communities, industrial IoT, and many more.”
Earlier, Ralph Mupita, the CEO, of MTN Group, had disclosed that 5G technology will bring a new world of opportunities based on its low latency and applications that will be captured by businesses playing in the telecommunications sub-sector and other tech-enabled companies.
Mupita stated that the shift from 4G to 5G is as revolutionary as the shift from 2G to 3G”.
According to him, 5G will usher in a new world of opportunities. “What is exciting for us are the industrial applications that come with 5G, the ability for companies to use high tech in how they run businesses. People talk about web 3.0, the metaverse, 5G enables a lot of that,” Mupita stated.
A 2020 White Paper released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) estimated that 5G will likely contribute $13.2 trillion worth of goods and services to the global economy by 2035.
According to the WEF, the ten primary industry sectors to be most impacted are manufacturing, transportation, public services, health and social work, agriculture, energy, logistics, media and entertainment, mining and quarrying, and professional services.
Through the effective deployment of 5G networks, 3D medical imaging, remote healthcare, safer transportation, precision agriculture, digitised logistics, and industrial/manufacturing processes will become a reality.
The Nigerian Communications Commission also said fifth-generation network will bridge the nation’s fibre connectivity gap and enhance Internet penetration with its wireless broadband connectivity across the nation.
