Following his visit to Nigeria earlier in the year, Ralph Mupita, CEO, MTN Group has declared that the 5G license won by MTN Nigeria will usher in a new world of opportunities.
Speaking in an interview on Arise TV’s Global Business Report, the group CEO gave an indication of what the telco will achieve with the spectrum license, “We have often said that the shift from 4G to 5G is as revolutionary as the shift from 2G to 3G.
“5G brings us a whole new world of opportunities because of the low latency and applications that will now be able to be captured by businesses such as ourselves.
“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.”
In December, 2021, MTN Nigeria was successful in its bid to acquire one of the two 100MHZ spectrum licenses in the 3.5GHz spectrum band auctioned by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). It was a significant step towards achieving the goals of the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (2020-25).
5G will enable seamless communication and interconnectivity between smart devices. It has the potential to accelerate the digital transformation of industries and according to Ralph Mupita, MTN is in the process of securing 5G frequencies in other countries, “We are arranging ourselves to be able to secure the frequencies across markets, there is a multiband auction in South Africa that we will participate in, and other markets will be calling. In the next couple of years, we will arrange to have the 5G frequencies and then build out the ecosystem.”
