SA set for full-scale 5G roll out in 2021

South Africa is set to get a technological boost due the intense rolling out of 5G – the latest generation of cellular network technology – seen by experts as the key enabler to the country’s Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

According to Research And Markets (RAM) – the world’s largest research store – the global 5G devices market will reach $45.96 billion by 2030, growing by 37.8% annually over the 2020 to 2030 period, despite the impact of Covid-19.

World Wide Worx managing director Arthur Goldstuck, who recently released a study on South Africa’s prospects for 5G by next year, said the country’s network operators were unanimous that 5G would be a key enabler of the 4IR.

“Network infrastructure and mobile networking standards are consistently evolving, providing unprecedented opportunity for enablement, innovation and economic development,” said Goldstuck.

“The industry believes that digital migration should be prioritised with extreme urgency to maximise the usefulness an operator can get from their temporary allocation,” said Goldstuck, adding: “Until then, deployments over this band segment will be hindered by quality-of-service issues.”

Goldstuck said 5G was being rolled out in a few major cities – not in the entire country.

“From March next year, you are likely to see a full-scale rollout of 5G, when proper spectrum is issued.

“With 5G making access more widespread and more reliable, it will definitely help to underpin the emerging technologies that make up the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” said Goldstuck.

In its white paper on the impact of 5G, the World Economic Forum earlier this year said the transition to the fifth-generation network could only be achieved when all stakeholders: consumers, business and government, collaborated.

According to professor Peter Bauer of the University of Johannesburg School of Economics, the long-term benefits of South Africa developing its 5G networks would outweigh short-term risks.

“We might see an increase in job creation, skills transfer as well as be able to house newer technologies, which may help boost foreign investment and confidence.

“The short-term risks may include the diversification of capital from development orientated growth to the technological advancement, which is limited to a few who may benefit in the short run.

“We need to develop the infrastructure or else we will be left behind as technology will rely on 5G support in the future,” maintained Bauer.

The advent of 5G in South Africa, has emerged against a background of the fierce China-US trade war, with the world extremely keen to know whether US President-elect Joe Biden would seek to change America’s foreign policy towards China, upon assuming office – compared to his predecessor, President Donald Trump.

With a huge impact on world trade relations, the ongoing multi-billion China–US trade conflict began in 2018 when Trump set tariffs and other trade barriers on China, with the goal of forcing it to make changes to what he described as “unfair trade practices”.

Trump’s tariff policy has been driven by an objective to encourage consumers to buy American products, by making imported goods more expensive – something that has led to uncertainties and weighed negatively on the global economy.

In a tit-for-tat encounter, the US has imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion of Chinese goods, with China retaliating by imposing tariffs on more than $110 billion of US products.

Under the pretext of protecting US national security from being compromised by Chinese technology companies operating in his country, Trump has issued executive orders, banning:

• Huawei – Chinese multinational technology company – with Trump arguing it could be used by China for spying, via its 5G equipment.
• Two major Chinese apps TikTok and WeChat from the US market, prohibiting Americans from carrying out any transactions with the companies – meaning US companies and individuals could not advertise with the platforms, offer them for download via app stores, or enter into licensing agreements with them.

While Huawei – under pressure from the Trump Administration – has been keeping solid cybersecurity records – the US history of spying on other countries has continued to be exposed, with former US spy Edward Snowden having laid to bare how the US has assumed the role of “big brother”, in his book Permanent Record.

As if the Snowden revelations were not enough to embarrass the US government, Denmark’s Public Broadcaster last month published a series of revelations that the US National Security Agency coordinated with the country’s intelligence services to spy on the Denmark government.

The magnitude of US espionage covered Denmark’s financial and foreign ministries, as well as a number of European defence firms – a move to obtain information on the country’s fighter acquisition programme – subsequently gaining an advantage in selling the country’s Lockheed Martin F-35s, instead of them purchasing Eurofighters.

According to the report, the US was able to tap into the country’s telecommunications networks via fibre optic cables.

Commenting on CGTN, Tom Fowdy, British political and international relations analyst and a graduate of Durham and Oxford universities, described the US move as “a staggering irony and mammoth scale hypocrisy from the country preaching to others ‘the clean network’ fears of espionage”.

Fowdy said the scandal revealed in tandem, “what the American scheme to exclude Huawei is in fact really all about: the uncontested supremacy of US global surveillance programmes, which are subsequently used to promote the interests of the military-industrial complex”.

“This is not a new or standalone revelation, but part of a longstanding trend by Washington, which has persistently utilised such activities for commercial gain and intellectual property theft.

“The anti-Huawei campaign is thus little more than a deflection for what the US itself does and they didn’t need 5G to do so,” said Fowdy.

Over the past two years, the US has waged a phenomenally aggressive campaign to oust Huawei from the next generation telecommunications networks of western countries.

In doing so, it has been claimed that the Chinese company has ties with the government, which subsequently allowed those networks to be used for espionage.

Despite evidence of the allegations being scant and never proven to be true, the western mainstream media has largely taken this narrative at face value, without scrutiny.

This has created a false assumption that China was the “espionage threat” and the US “Mr Clean”.

The Denmark revelations tell a different story – an example of how the United States has abused its intelligence sharing agreements with other countries for its commercial gain.

Chief to the benefactors was the military-industrial complex, which might be noted have funded a number of think tanks espousing anti-Huawei propaganda. This should reveal the superficiality of the anti-Huawei argument.

Experts have pointed out that this was not so much cybersecurity but about American supremacy and uncontested monopoly, in both the strategic and corporate spheres.

Amid the prospects of a technological boost following the advent of 5G, SA’s sovereignty in making key decisions on who to do business with, is a matter President Cyril Ramaphosa has been firm on, with experts advising that technical issues should best be tackled by technical gurus than politicians.

They have argued for broader domestic collaboration at the levels of government, business and industrial bodies, in setting global technical standards for cybersecurity.

Working together to address cybersecurity challenges, has emerged as key.

International inter-governmental collaboration, with countries working together and talking to each other – instead of pointing fingers at each other – seems to be the way to go.

brians@citizen.co.za

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