MTN Nigeria’s Chief Enterprise Business Officer, Mrs. Lynda Saint-Nwafor, on Thursday assured telecommunication subscribers in the country that the telecom operator’s deployment of 5G technology would enhance operational efficiencies for businesses in the country.
Saint-Nwafor, who gave this assurance at the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce (NSACC) August Breakfast meeting in Lagos, said 90 percent of addressable market for 5G spanned six key sectors, namely manufacturing, government, energy/utilities, healthcare, media/entertainment and transportation/logistics.
According to her, for businesses 5G technology provides total independence from public network, high and reserved capacity, enhanced indoor and outdoor coverage and high level of security and control to access service infrastructure equipment, systems and services.
While noting that 5G technology is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects and devices via increased speed, low latency, higher capacity and innovation, the industry expert stressed that the future of business largely depended on use of artificial intelligence for decision making, smart offices and high connectivity through 5G technology.
She said: “5G is poised to offer innovation that would change our lives. It would engender smart manufacturing, smart metering and maintenance, smart cities, better route and traffic management, enhanced experience and breakthrough in tele-health.
“Particularly for manufacturing, it would enable automation for production and factory operations, allow remote monitoring and inspection, reduce operational costs and drive competitiveness”, Saint-Nwafor added.
In his remarks at the event, the Chairman of the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce (NSACC), Mr. Osayaba Giwa-Osagie, described the 5G network as the future of entrepreneurship and technology as the fifth generation of mobile wireless technology and the next technological upgrade from 4G.
According to him, 5G offers speed and other technical details needed to run a successful business with increased capacity, hence the need for business owners to begin to think about the impact it could have on their operations and harness its capabilities to drive efficiencies.
He said: “It is, therefore, important for companies to embrace 5G for operational efficiencies as new demand would lead to changes.
“5G is expected to impact businesses from agriculture to entertainment to manufacturing and a host of other sectors. It is fast, reliable and enhances productivity at remote locations among others”, Giwa Osagie added.
It would be recalled that MTN had on Wednesday announced plans to roll out the 5G trial service in seven cities of Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Abuja, Kano, Maiduguri and Owerri.
