On January 10th, MTN Uganda was the first to announce that it had partnered with Huawei Technologies, to transform and modernize its network towards a Cloud-native 5G-Capable Core network. Yesterday, the Airtel Uganda Managing Director, Mr. Manoj Murali announced that their legacy Network is now ready for 5G technology and they are currently testing 11 5G capable sites. In January 2020, MTN Uganda became the first operator in East Africa and the third in Africa to demonstrate how customers will be able to experience the 5G network. What’s for sure is that 2023 is the year of 5G in Uganda.
ALSO READ: Dear wireless carriers: where is the 5G hype?
It is a tight race between Uganda’s two telecom giants — while MTN only announced that their core network will soon evolve into an All-Cloud Core network, Airtel 5G technology seems to be head announcing 11 sites under test. These test sites will cover areas such as the Industrial area, Garden City Area, Upper Kololo, Clement Hill, Hannington Road, Lower airstrip Kololo, and Wampewo Avenue.
Users should not expect their 2G, 3G, or 4G-only smartphones to be able to access the new high-speed network from both these telcos when they commercially launch. Only 5G-compatible devices will be able to access the network, the beauty of it all is that users will keep their existing 4G SIM Cards. Most of the smartphones made over the past two years should support this technology. Unlike MTN which is still tight-lipped on its 5G progress, Airtel also announced that all other Airtel sites across the country have been configured and are ready for deployment once the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) allocates them the desired spectrum.
The 5G promise has been a big deal, we heard things like; It will drive cars, support remote surgeries, fly drones, and experience download speeds on your phone so astoundingly fast that your sunglasses will fly off your face just being so close. In countries that have it, the speed is surely impressive as shown in the Safaricom 5G speed tests below.
Lets us not forget the UCC factor. As mentioned above, seems telecoms are not using the final 5G spectrum. Uganda just like the EU will have to operate in the following frequency bands; low bands at 700 MHz, mid bands between 3.4-3.8 GHz, and high-band (mm-wave band) between: 24.25-27.5 GHz. Our sources confirm have confirmed that telecom companies have already expressed interest to the regulator for the spectrum from the regular? But whether UCC has finalized the process of gazetting the required 5G spectrum use in Uganda, is still unknown. As the race between MTN and Airtel Uganda tightens, we all wait to see who will be the first to launch Uganda’s first commercial 5G network.
