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The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) have collaborated with Huawei to provide 5G training to Computer Science students and ICT staffers at Walter Sisulu University.
The two-day training that started at the university’s Mthatha Campus on the 21 February 2020 is an initiative that should enable students to understand the 5G protocol standardization, key industry applications, ecosystems, network architecture and key technologies.
DCDT Minister, Stella Ndabeni- Abrahams said; “My responsibility as a minister is to make sure that South Africa is a global player in the 4IR and that means it is my responsibility to make sure that the 5G spectrum is launched on time in preparation for the 4IR.”
She further added that she wants young people to challenge those who came before them in the IT space and even challenge Huawei because Eastern Cape youth understand ICT for rural development better than Huawei as much as they are the best in the market.
Huawei South Africa CEO, Spawn Fan said; “We want to do this 5G training because it is the future and we want all South Africans to know and understand future technologies. Over the past ten years we have spent more than R20 billion on the 5G research to improve technology and what better way to educate the youth about the future than taking advantage of such partnerships.”
He added that many find it difficult to understand the 5G world they are trying to introduce. The 4IR that people are currently using is 4G, which takes about 30 minutes to download a 2-hour video but with 5G network it will take 5 seconds and with no buffering when watching online.
Desktop User Support Technician, Lonwabo Sogoni, said; “The training focused more on telecommunication, for an example how you are able to call someone using another network while using a different one. We were also taught about the difference between 2G, 3G, 4G and the new 5G.”
He further explained that he was even made aware of how 4G suddenly drops to 3G when receiving a call and the network weakens and sometimes the call would keep cutting if you were driving, problems that will not be experienced in the 5G spectrum.
Phindile Duma, 3rd year Computer Science student, WSU, said; “The training was very interesting, the 5G training was able to clarify which path I should take on the systems that exists like cloud and others because sometimes we enroll in courses not knowing they will take us after university.”
Duma said that some of the things that interests him about the 4IR is being able to service yourself faster in restaurants such as Mc Donald’s, he said that shows that the future is getting brighter.
Huawei provides an e-course to everyone who wants to further their knowledge on the 5G spectrum. Also after visiting all the selected rural universities, a hundred students will be selected to go and experience the 5G network live in China.
-By Anita Roji
