SA's first 5G network took Barcelona by surprise at the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) this week. The event was dominated by the next generation of wireless connectivity, highlighting the technology as a flashpoint in the trade war between East and West.
The big players in 5G, China's Huawei and Sweden's Ericsson, went head to head in claiming 5G leadership, with a slew of announcements of new technologies and partnerships.
At the same time, SA saw an unlikely arm's-length "alliance" between Huawei and Finland's Nokia, the networking arm of the brand that saw its smartphones spun off first to Microsoft and then to HMD Global.
At a press conference during MWC, Willem Roos, CEO of South African wireless internet service Rain, announced the provider had gone live with the country's first 5G network, built with both Huawei and Nokia technology.
Rain was founded by ex-FNB CEO Michael Jordaan and FirstRand founder Paul Harris and originally comprised the rebranded WBS network, acquired along with its iBurst service and extensive wireless spectrum licences.
The WBS licences were an anomaly at the time, with only Telkom and Neotel - now part of Liquid Telecom - granted similar access to spectrum appropriate for high-speed wireless internet access.
Huawei's end-to-end 5G solutions were used to build Rain's 5G network, using its 3.6GHz spectrum, which allows fibre-like speeds. The first phase saw 5G sites deployed in Johannesburg.
"The network will provide fibre-like speeds without the installation complexities, time delays and cost of laying fibre in under-serviced areas," said Roos.
Huawei's solutions also allow Rain to combine its LTE (long-term evolution) network with spectrum for 5G. "It is an important step to work with Rain in bringing the first 5G network construction to SA," said Shi Jilin, president of Huawei Cloud Core Network Product Line.
Nokia, too, claimed the honours of deploying the Rain 5G network with its own end-to-end 5G solutions, but focused on Cape Town.
Deon Geyser, head of Nokia's Southern Africa subregion, said: "5G technology promises to play a crucial role in bridging the digital divide, which will help in the overall economic and social growth of the region."
The 5G network, said Nokia, opened the door for new applications and services that rely on ultra-high speeds and ultra-low latency, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence - for improved education, health care and entertainment.
Roos told Business Times: "Rain is a real start-up, with many things happening at once, even a bit chaotic and very fast-moving. The 5G roll-out comes hard on the heels of Rain's 4G network.
"Rain started building a 5G LTE network with Huawei and Nokia in 2016. We're now at just under 3,000 towers and we cover the major metros in SA. We have various agreements with our partners, one of which is Vodacom, whereby we lease infrastructure from them, and they roam on Rain. So Rain is quite a substantial business from that point of view and our network carries a not insignificant portion of the mobile data of SA."
He says Rain will remain a data-only network, with no ambition to become a primary communications provider.
"It is geared towards people using dual SIM cards, mobile Wi-FI devices and always-connected laptops, tablets and the like. To partner with a nationwide operator makes sense.
"At the same time, we also have a spectrum licence in the 3.6GHz band, a very suitable band for 5G. We're in the process of building a non-standalone 5G network, using components of the 4G network initially, which enables us to roll out the network very rapidly at an affordable cost."
The trick, for Rain, is to use its 4G network for the uplink, that is data uploaded by users from their systems, and 5G for the downlink, comprising all the high-demand services users want, from streaming movies and multi-player gaming to remote teaching and even surgery.
"It means we don't have to go build thousands of new towers to provide very good coverage in the metro area.
"We already have a number of towers live and hope to provide good coverage in Johannesburg and Cape Town by midyear, and by the end of the year in most major metros. The first application is to provide fast wireless access to homes and small businesses. There is a big need for it in the country, and we can do it cost-effectively, partly because fibre takes a long time to lay down and is expensive."
The primary drawback in the roll-out is the absence of suitable equipment. Though 5G mobile Wi-Fi devices were unveiled at MWC, led by Huawei and HTC, none were immediately available.
However, Roos believes it's important for networks to be ready when the devices do come to market, mass production begins and prices fall.
"It is our sense that, compared to 3G and 4G, the ecosystem is emerging a lot quicker. It took 3G three years before it had mass manufacture of devices after the networks were ready. It took 4G two years. We think 5G will be less than a year.
"Many components of our network will be ready before we get access to a significant number of devices. Our vendors have assured us it's a high priority for them to start manufacturing 5G devices at scale. From midyear we think they should be able to ramp up production quickly, especially towards the end of 2019."
This suggests affordable, widespread 5G will be a welcome Christmas present for urban South Africans...