CIO Year Ahead: 5G Will Enhance Connectivity, Create Jobs in 2022

Kenyans will experience better connectivity, more job opportunities and better services in 2022 as local telcos roll out the 5G network, Kris Senanu, Chief Enterprise Business Officer at Safaricom, said during his presentation at the CIO 100 Year Ahead Event that brought together experts to share their thoughts on technology trends to watch out this year.

“5G will take the opportunities brought by the Internet and smartphones to another level. We are going to see a proliferation of jobs because of 5G,” Senanu said.

He revealed that Safaricom has deployed 150 base stations across the country that will be operational by April this year. With the rollout of 5G, Senanu said, “5G will enhance connectivity. Fixed wireless access is a good way to give people connectivity especially those in places where our fibre does not cover”.

According to him, the 5G network will have a significant impact on agriculture, education and health sectors as it will make monitoring and sharing of information reliable.

“With 5G, the ability to have HD quality signal in terms of monitoring has been enhanced. On health, 5G will help telemedicine by enhancing speed and reliability. 5G will help connect hospitals. Doctor-patient engagement, hospital to hospital engagement,” he said.

He added that it will allow organizations to have their own private networks which come with enhanced capacities and improved security.

While Kenyans are generally earlier adopters of technology, their uptake of 5G technology may be hampered by the high costs of 5G devices according to Senanu.

“The challenge is that 5G devices tend to be much more expensive and so it will take some time for that price to come down. As more network providers across the world adopt the technology it means that more vendors are going to build devices around the 5G technology,” he said.

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