Tech in Africa
Kenya telecom giant Safaricom will collaborate with Nokia, Huawei, and Samsung to unveil its 5G network technology, joining other countries in Subsaharan Africa such as South Africa in advancing this technology.
Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom’s CEO offers new technology that allows organizations to venture into areas like virtual tourism, online gaming, digital education, and telemedicine. He also pointed out how Safaricom’s next step is to become a “purpose-led tech company by 2025” helping to drive innovation across different economic ecosystems. Launched on Friday, the company rolled out the technology in Kisumu, Kakamega, Kisii, and Nairobi – all of which increases the data traffic significantly.
This 5G technology will be powered by Huawei and Nokia Corporation. It is worth noting that Huawei has been under increased scrutiny in the Western world. Safaricom subscribers who want to use the new 5G compatible handsets will need new 5G compatible handsets offering super-fast internet speeds.
The telecom giant reported a threefold growth over the past five years amounting to 49.6 billion last year. By the second quarter of September, Kenya had 58.9 million mobile subscribers of whom 42.8 million are mobile data subscribers.
