Ethiopia's state-owned telecoms
firm, Ethio Telecom has launched its pre-commercial 5G services in the country's
capital, Addis Ababa.
In a statement announcing the
rollout, the company which has over 64 million subscribers nationwide noted
that it has put online six base stations for the pre-launch which provides up
to 10 GBps speeds, low latency rates of less than 1ms, and communications
capacity of one million connections within 1km square, adding that due to the advances
in connectivity 5G brings, mission-critical industries such as healthcare and
manufacturing will see a positive impact.
It, however, stated that full commercialization will depend on demand from players in the ecosystem, consumer readiness for the services which correlates with the availability of 5G devices and smartphones, and enterprise demand.
The
operator further emphasized that “Our pre-commercial deployment of the 5G
service in Addis Ababa, as the capital city of our country and the diplomatic
seat of international and continental institutions is in line with our
aspiration to become a preferred operator as well as with our three years’
growth strategy and technology roadmap.”
Huawei
was highlighted as a key supplier for the construction of Ethio Telecom’s 5G
network.
By: Kanto Okanta
