South Africa is getting closer to launching 5G after its first trial

South Africa telco MTN has launched South Africa’s first 5G trial, racking up blistering download speeds of more than 20 gigabytes a second.

The trial, a partnership with Ericsson, has recorded the fastest download speeds on a mobile network in Africa and it’s now thought 5G could eventually become a challenger to the fixed-line market too.

However, rolling out 5G will take some time. MTN needs the government to release spectrum to help lower the cost of data.

Meanwhile, in November Vodacom announced it is planning a 5G trial with Nokia.

According to GlobalData research, 5G will be commercially available in South Africa by 2022. Here’s how the South African mobile market is expected change by then.