Huawei and rain launch Africa's first standalone 5G network

South Africa’s data-only mobile network, rain, has launched its first Standalone 5G (SA 5G) network in the country. Powered by Huawei, this is the first commercial standalone 5G network in Africa.

rain's Standalone 5G is currently available in Cape Town covering areas including Sea Point in Cape Town, Claremont, Goodwood, Bellville, Durbanville, and Cape Town City Centre.

It is believed that the newly released SA 5G network is built on rain's own sites. This, according to rain, allows the company to significantly enhance its fixed wireless broadband (FWA) service experience in the covered areas. The SA 5G was realized by Huawei’s Converged Core Solution and Massive MIMO technologies.

"Standalone 5G will further improve 5G network performance with increased the uplink rate, lower latency, and improved reliability, ushering in high-end cloud VR and cloud gaming services, more diversified enterprise and home broadband services, " said rain Chief Marketing Officer Khaya Dlanga.

"SA 5G will demonstrate how 5G is powerful in realizing South Africa’s 4IR future. Powered by Huawei’s world’s leading 5G solutions, our SA 5G will enable the industries ‘digital transformation in the future, such as smart healthcare, smart ports, smart mining, and smart manufacturing in South Africa. We will work with the trustworthy strategic partner to further expand our 5G networks and bring the best service and experience to our customers," Dlanga further added.