{"id":162234,"date":"2025-09-23T01:05:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T01:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/162234\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T01:05:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T01:05:14","slug":"sub-saharan-africas-5g-rollout-stumbles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/162234\/","title":{"rendered":"Sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s 5G rollout stumbles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Only 1.2% of internet users in sub-Saharan Africa were connected to 5G in 2024, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.broadbandcommission.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/dlm_uploads\/2025\/09\/The-State-of-Broadband-in-Africa.pdf\" class=\"styles_linkEmbed__SNmaX\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">latest broadband connectivity report<\/a> from the International Telecommunications Union and UNESCO. <\/p>\n<p>More than half of all mobile connections were using 3G, while just over a third used 4G, indicating that many on the continent rely on slower internet than other users globally, despite investments in African internet infrastructure totaling $28 billion over the last five years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis sluggish transition underscores a growing digital divide that <a href=\"https:\/\/techcabal.com\/2025\/09\/16\/only-1-in-100-africans-use-5g-despite-28-billion-investment\/\" class=\"styles_linkEmbed__SNmaX\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">could undermine Africa\u2019s competitiveness in the global digital economy<\/a>,\u201d TechCabal\u2019s Frank Eleanya wrote. <\/p>\n<p>Successful rollouts of 5G across Africa <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africanleadershipmagazine.co.uk\/how-5g-connectivity-will-revolutionise-african-economies\/\" class=\"styles_linkEmbed__SNmaX\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">could add $26 billion to the continent\u2019s economy<\/a> by the end of the decade, according to mobile industry trade body GSMA Intelligence. However, without offering affordable services in rural areas as well as urban centers, 5G \u201crisks remaining a premium service for a small elite,\u201d Eleanya warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only 1.2% of internet users in sub-Saharan Africa were connected to 5G in 2024, according to the latest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[64,63,237,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-162234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}