President of Global Carrier Marketing & Solution Sales Dept of Huawei, Richard Liu, has called for continuous localized innovation in Africa and for players across the sector to work together to build a digital Africa.   

He said the remarkable intergenerational capabilities of 5Gnetworks were accelerating the development of the ICT industry, and stimulating huge innovation momentum, changing lives and society.  

Mr Liu was speaking on the topic, "Dream Africa's 5GProsperity, Build an Inclusive Digital Cornerstone" during a summit hosted by Huawei at AfricaCom, the continent’s largest technology conference.   

The event was on the theme: "5G Lights Up Africa Together Towards Business Success."  

Among the topics discussed were how operators in Southern Africa can continuously build value-added networks for 5G, how they can improve the 5G network experience, accelerate Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) industry development, and achieve 5G business success. 

 He said, “Global operators with a firm 5G strategy have achieved business success.”  

Mr Liu said to achieve Africa’s 5G prosperity dream, it was recommended to build a digital Africa via three inclusive innovations: inclusive ecosystems, inclusive services, and inclusive networks.   

These innovations can be achieved by maturing the 5Gterminal ecosystem, developing FWA services and building a 4G/5G synergy network, building a solid digital foundation of Africa.  

Madam Thabisa Faye, Director and Chairman of the 5G Council Committee of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) said “3.6 million jobs is what they say can be derived out of the mobile industry, either directly or indirectly.”  

“When we look quite closely at the African scenario and more specifically the sub-Saharan region, we can see that traffic has grown quite significantly,” she said. 

Mr Zoltan Miklos, General Manager of Access, and Architecture, MTN South Africa said 5G was the key strength to overcome macro and industry context and the core of ambition 2025 strategy. 

He said MTN South Africa would adopt digital solutions that lead Africa's progress and strive to build the best 5G network and provide excellent user experience.   

He said there was a need to create solutions that cater to the lived reality of African customers.  

Mr James Langat, Director of Regional Network Implementation and Operations at Safaricom, delivered a speech introducing Safaricom’s wireless home broadband strategy and spoke about the opportunities that 5G offers.   

“The first opportunity, of course, is that we deliver 5GMBB (mobile broadband) to our users and we have a growing number of our users adopting 5G,” he said.  

 Mr Abdul Malik Ahmed, Senior Manager of the Fixed Broadband Marketing Dept of MTN Nigeria, shared MTN Nigeria's "Own The Home“ wireless home broadband strategy, including Fixed-wireless Access (FWA)/FTTx technologies and future network construction plans.   

He said that FWA is the main driving force for home broadband growth.   

He said the "Own The Home" wireless home broadband strategy would continue to develop 4G/5G FWA and FTTH services to win home broadband customers. MTN Nigeria, he added, will continue to enable Nigeria’s future digital transformation through 5G.