5G network will be in Nigeria by 2021, it’s not dangerous – Buhari govt

The Nigerian Communications Commission says the trial of the fifth generation mobile network shows that there is no health hazard associated with the use of the technology.

The commission in a draft consultation document on Deployment of Fifth Generation Mobile Technology in Nigeria published on Monday stated that the trial was conducted in six cities – Abuja, Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta, Kano and Calabar.

The regulatory body said the tests were conducted in accordance with the 1998 International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection guidelines for general public exposure to varying electromagnetic fields, which were in force at the time of the trials.

It said the results of EMF radiation indicated that the highest radiation at 26 GHz millimeter wave at 5m away from source was 4.3 per cent and at 30m from the source was 0.14 per cent.

It added that the highest radiation at 3.5 GHz at 5m away from the source was 11.4 per cent and at 30m away from the source was 1.9 per cent of ICNIRP specification of 61 v/m for frequency range 2-300 GHz.

“These results are far below the ICNIRP specification for protection of members of the public in the Guidelines and therefore suggest that no public health hazards are expected from the use of 5G in Nigeria,” the NCC said.

The telecoms regulator stated that the deployment of the new network in the country would be done in two phases.

It said the phase one, which involves deployment based on the non-standalone approach, would commence in 2021.

According to the NCC, the phase two based on the stand-alone approach, which relies on new spectrum allocations, will commence in 2022.

“The current race to deploy 5G networks is targeted at providing citizens with the benefits of the technology while at the same time enabling the activation of the digital economy,” it said.

The regulatory body said ‘5G network deployment will rely on the availability of sufficient radio spectrum at the low, medium and high-frequency bands to provide for the different use cases and applications’.

“While some of these frequencies will be newly assigned for 5G network deployment, others will have to be re-farmed from other existing communication services,” it added.

The commission said 24.25-27.5 GHz, 37-43.5 GHz, 45.5-47 GHz, 47.2-48.2 GHz, and 66-71 GHz were globally recognised spectrum bands for 5G deployment.

It said the bands were available and not assigned to operators at the moment except the 26 GHz band, where an operator currently had an assignment of two slots of 2 X 28 MHz each in the old plan.

The industry regulator promised that the operator would be vacated and the band licensed based on the new TDD plan