Todd Ashton, Vice President of Ericsson Middle East and Africa and Head of the Customer Unit for South and East Africa, spoke at the 2024 Africa Tech Festival.
The main points of his speech were the expansion of 4G and 5G networks and the opportunities in the enterprise sector.
Ashton discussed the continued growth of 4G technology in Africa and its importance for the continent. He highlighted how lower-cost 4G devices are more accessible to African citizens, leading to increased smartphone usage and a stronger fintech market.
He also spoke about the high cost of 5G devices but predicted a significant increase in 5G networks, especially for operators planning to launch Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services for the enterprise or home broadband market.
Additionally, he shared positive developments across the continent, such as the rise of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services, the growth of RAN and cloud RAN solutions, and how the telecommunications sector is using artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce operating costs.
“I think we will see steady growth of 5G, meanwhile we will continue to see a steady decline of 3G and eventually I think we might start seeing more 3G spectrum being used either for 5G or for 4G, 2G I expect to stay for a while because we need a USSD channel for mobile money,” he said.