At the Durban July which took place last weekend in South Africa, Vodacom, LG, and Nokia showcased Africa’s first 5G commercial-ready technology. The trio uses the recently launched LG V50 ThinQ 5G smartphone and Nokia’s AirScale 5G radio network technology in the demo.
Vodacom was granted a temporary spectrum license of 100MHz by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) for the demonstration. The live demonstration involved a network with dual connectivity fluctuating between 4G and 5G network. Vodacom used its live transport and cloud core network technology for the demo.
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The LG V50 ThinQ 5G smartphone was one of the first commercially-ready smartphones in the world. It uses Artificial Intelligence and features a Qualcomm SDM855 Snapdragon 855 chipset which supports download speeds of up to 5 gigabits per second. Nokia’s Airscale 5G radio network uses an active antenna to deliver the latest 5G Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (mMIMO) technologies. The Snapdragon X50 5G modem of LG’s smartphone paired with up to 4QTM052 mm-Wave antenna modules supports advanced mobility features.
Although the 5G spectrum is yet to be launched in South Africa, Vodacom is ready to bring 5G-enabled devices to Africa. The demo was the first live demonstration of a commercially-ready 5G smartphone in Africa, unlike the previous demos which used fixed 5G routers instead of a smartphone. The allocation of 5G spectrum in Africa would hallmark cutting edge innovative solutions that will usher in a new era of connectivity.