MTN South Africa Trials 5G-Advanced

MTN South Africa has trialled 5G-Advanced on the Upper 6GHz band with Huawei and says it is the first such trial in Africa, reporting a peak download speed of 10.35Gbps.

The claim of a first is MTN’s and has not been independently verified. The trial ran at MTN’s headquarters in Randburg, Johannesburg, on a 400MHz channel. MTN used a dedicated 5G standalone core, ultra-wideband active antennas and advanced beamforming.

MTN operated under a temporary radio licence from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). South Africa has not yet fully licensed spectrum in these higher bands, so a trial licence was the route open to the operator.

ICASA’s National Radio Frequency Plan 2026 allocates the full 700MHz contiguous Upper 6GHz band to International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) services. MTN said it supported identifying the band for alignment with IMT standards.

MTN said the trial was meant to demonstrate the capacity, throughput and advanced use-case potential the band can unlock. It cited reliable home broadband and added capacity in high-demand areas.

Ferdi Moolman, CEO, MTN South Africa, said trials of this kind “help us better understand how next-generation spectrum bands…”.

Alex Xing, Vice-President, Huawei’s MTN Group Key Account Department, described the band as “a core spectrum resource for 5G-A and 6G”.

The trial establishes the technical case. Commercial use depends on ICASA licensing the band, which it has not done.