MTN South Africa and Ericsson have announced South Africa's first 5G customer trial, deployment with a fixed wireless access site at Netstar’s headquarters in Midrand.
Nestar is South Africa's leading vehicle tracking company. The field deployment in Midrand, situated between Johannesburg and Tshwane (Pretoria), is part of Ericsson’s continuing efforts to deliver end-to-end 5G capabilities to support MTN South Africa’s growth, 5G, and enterprise ambitions. Following the field deployment, MTN is planning to test other 5G use cases. The Ericsson 5G solution deployed operates on 28 GHz band with a total operating bandwidth of 100 MHz using Ericsson trial antenna integrated radio units and Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform providing Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) in the customer premises. Many of the Netstar employees can also connect to this trial 5G network through the different WiFi access points.
In addition to facilitating the delivery of next-generation mobile broadband, cloud and providing support for massive Internet of Things (IoT) deployment, this collaboration will also enable new industry use cases thanks to increased throughput and reduced latency, says Ericsson.
Giovanni Chiarelli, CTIO, MTN South Africa
We have been working in close partnership with Ericsson on 5G for tests in the lab, field trials, and now initial customer test deployment. Throughout this process, our customers and their service requirements are our top priority. Our aim is to build a network to cater for current and future required services.
Rafiah Ibrahim, Head of Ericsson Middle East and Africa
Our collaboration with MTN South Africa will enable us to jointly develop 5G use cases based on real business needs that will support MTN to meet their future business requirements.
