Country expects 48% 4G coverage this year, 85% by 2027; 5G only 2%

Angola’s National Director of Telecommunications & IT Matias Borges has told a telecoms forum that the government expects Angolan mobile network operators to jointly achieve 48% 4G LTE population coverage at the end of 2023 – up from a current figure of ‘34%’ – rising to 85% ‘by 2027’. As reported by Expansao, Mr Borges also stated that fledgling 5G networks should cover ‘2%’ of the population at end-December 2023, while noting that the percentages compare to current national 3G network coverage of ‘around 90%’ according to figures from the Ministry of Telecommunications, Information Technology & Social Communication (Ministerio das Telecomunicacoes, Tecnologias de Informacao e Comunicacao Social – MINTTICS).

Under a topic named ‘The existing infrastructure network in the country and its future development’ at the VI Expansao Telecom Forum, Borges stated that Angola has made great progress in terms of telecommunications, but still faces problems and many challenges, underlining: ‘We need to renovate existing [network] sections that are having problems and also build new sections.’

TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database says that Angola’s mobile market leader Unitel and rival Movicel both launched 4G LTE networks in 2012, with newcomer Africell commercially opening its LTE network services a decade later in April 2022, while Africell and Unitel have deployed limited 5G network sections so far. The government has recently demanded explanations from Unitel regarding ‘constant’ network failures, with Unitel acknowledging the problems which it blames on a lack of network capacity and claims that it is working to resolve the issues, Novo Jornal reports.