President Muhammadu Buhari endorsed the trial of 5G technology at the MTN first live demo of 5G network (5th generation network technology) on Monday in Abuja.

He was represented at the occasion by the Minister of  Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami.

Buhari expressed delight to be part of the historical moment, stressing that migration from 4G to 5G would be a revolution in the industry.

The President also directed Pantami to address the challenges facing the telecoms sector systematically, adding that an executive order was in the pipeline to consider Telecommunications Infrastructure as critical national assets.

“We are working day in day out to make sure that the environment is conducive for people to do their businesses.

“This administration is passionate about developing Nigeria’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) Sector which contributes more than Oil and Gas to GDP,” Buhari said.

Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), had told the global community that African continent held the ace, adding that 5G was the next frontier of investment.

Danbatta expressed optimism that 5G would provide a very veritable and convincing investment for investors.

Speaking at the event, former Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Ernest Ndukwe, who is also the board Chairman of MTN Nigeria, expressed delight that Nigeria was one of the countries championing 5G trial on the  African continent.

Ndukwe said that the new technology was at least, 100 times faster than 4G, adding that 5G also provided faster data transfer speed and lower latency, compared to 4G.

“Additionally, 5G boasts of improved reliability as well as better support for more devices.

“5G is a transformational change from 4G with the potential to provide 20 times faster data speeds.

“It carries a massive amount of data for a large number of simultaneous users.

“5G will support business innovative ambitions, create new markets, transform supply chain management and create smarter and more efficient manufacturing sector.

“5G is extremely fast and supports data transfer rates of up to 20Gbits/S. 5G will allow stream, download and upload of huge quantities of data at a much faster rate.

“During a comparison test on both 4G and 5G networks, it took just 15.78 seconds to download a 2.3 GB video on the 5G network and the same file on 4G took exactly 5 minutes, 3.84 seconds.”

“This according to the telco operator will enable the company to provide better data services at a more affordable cost to its subscribers. (NAN)