The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has insisted that there is no deployment of the 5G network in the country at the moment.
NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr Henry Nkemadu, made this known in a statement while reacting to claims that the telecommunication industry planned to switch on 5G in Lagos on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday.
He faulted the claims, saying the commission had approved a trial test for 5G for a period of three months in November 2019 and the trial had been concluded and installation decommissioned.
Nkemadu said the NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Professor Umar Danbatta, had explained that the trial was to study and observe any health or security challenges the 5G network might present.
He added that relevant stakeholders, including members of the security agencies, were invited to participate in the trial.
The NCC spokesman stated that the agency would continue to maintain its policy of technology neutrality and encourage service providers to deploy the best technology that would meet the needs of the society in a secure and friendly manner.
According to him, the NCC has provided clarifications of Frequently Asked Questions in view of the recent developments in which the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was linked to the 5G network.
Nkemadu stressed that the claim that there would be switching on of 5G in Lagos was false.
He said the agency also provided clarifications on the laying of fibre optic cables within Lagos and other parts of the country to the effect that the laying of additional fibre optic cables was to strengthen the existing 3G and 4G infrastructure.
The NCC official explained that this was aimed at providing robust and pervasive telecoms infrastructure to improve network performance.
“NCC has not issued any licence for 5G in Nigeria and, therefore, the mobile network operators (MNOS) cannot switch on such technology,” Danbatta was quoted as saying in the statement.
He added, “NCC is technology neutral. As such, we don’t license technology but assigns spectrum to operators for deployment of any service when allocated by the National Frequency Management Council (NFMC).
“As the telecoms regulator, we enjoin Nigerians to get accurate information from us rather than relying on information emanating on social media by some individuals out of ignorance to misinform our people.”
5G is the fifth generation of mobile technology which is an improvement of the 4G technology with enhanced capabilities.
It provides the platform for new and emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Big Data to make life easy for the people.