South African operator rain and Nokia have announced the launch of the country’s first commercial-ready 5G network in Cape Town, following the deployment of the first 5G site last November.
The achievement supports rain’s goal to introduce 5G services at the earliest possible time in line with South Africa’s vision to ensure a seamless information infrastructure by 2030 for an inclusive knowledge economy.
In addition, Nokia and rain have agreed to collaborate on deploying the 5G network with Nokia’s end-to-end 5G solutions including optical fronthaul transport products and its Fixed Wireless Access FastMile 5G Gateway. Nokia’s FastMile 5G Gateway is a home solution that brings high speeds to homes using 3GPP compliant 5G New Radio.
The 5G network opens the door for new applications and services that rely on ultra-high speeds and ultra-low latency, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence for improved education, healthcare, entertainment, and more.
The rollout will continue through 2020 to extend the network to more areas. Later this year the network will also support a variety of 5G use cases when commercial 5G end-user devices become available. This initiative paves the way for the introduction of 5G services in the entire country.
This joins Safaricom which unveiled 400G in