MTN SA, Huawei complete first 5.5G mobile network trial in South Africa

Mobile network firm MTN South Africa and IT multinational Hauwei have, in a strategic partnership, completed the first 5.5G network trial in South Africa at the MTN Head Office, in Johannesburg.

The deployment of MTN's 5.5G 10 Gb experience will greatly promote the development of South Africa's digital economy by connecting the unconnected and supporting the enhancement of the lives of its people, MTN said in a statement.

During the trial, MTN South Africa used Huawei’s SingleRAN ultra-wideband active-antenna units and applied hybrid beam-forming architecture in conjunction with flexible dynamic beam management and Inter-FR carrier aggregation technologies.

Spectrum resources in the millimetre wave and C-band, using spectrum obtained through a trial licence, were used on site in 5G standalone mode.

MTN achieved an ultrahigh-speed experience of 8.6 Gb/s to a user.

A 5.5G network has ten times the network performance compared to current 5G technology, which means 10 Gb/s headline connection speeds, ten times the number of Internet-of-Things connections, or reducing latency by a factor of ten, the company said.

Similarly, 5.5G networks also consume a tenth of the energy that they consume today on a per terabyte basis and through Level 4 autonomous driving, making operations and maintenance more efficient by a factor of ten.

"MTN is leveraging the innovative technology of 5.5G to accelerate the journey towards a techno-centric continent, marking the arrival of a new era in African telecommunications."

This new era will empower MTN to unlock new opportunities for business and consumers alike, it said.

"The 10 Gb experience will expand new commercial services for consumers, households, and enterprises, accelerating the development of advanced use cases such as 24K Extended Reality, high-speed Fixed Wireless Access, holographic conferencing, and enhanced 5G private networks, among others," says MTN South Africa CTO Rami Farah.

The joint release of 5.5G by MTN South Africa and Huawei further deepens their strategic partnership, said Huawei sub-Saharan Africa Region VP Li Chen.

"The trial also fulfils Huawei's responsibilities and vision in Africa, namely bringing the most advanced technologies to Africa, bridging the digital divide and accelerating the development of digital economy, and the advent of the mobile AI era on the African continent," he said.