Equitel has officially unveiled its 5G network in the country.
Equitel, Finserve’s mobile virtual network operator has partnered with Airtel to launch 5G in Kenya and the new network is available across 370 locations from the coast, the lakeside and the north rift.
It’s worth noting that Equitel launched 4G services in 2021.
Equitel 5G is accessible in Mombasa, Nairobi, Athi River, Kisumu, Kakamega, Bungoma, Eldoret and Siaya. Equitel has said that they will be expanding their 5G network to residential areas, shopping centres and central business districts.
Equitel joins Safaricom and their host mobile network operator, Airtel to bring 5G network in the country. With this launch, Equitel is offering its subscribers a 100% bonus on data bundles every Wednesday and Friday.
To access the Equitel 5G network, you’ll need a 5G-capable smartphone and a 4G-LTE sim card. If you’re still using a 3G sim card, you’ll need to transition to a 4G-LTE sim card at the nearest Equity Bank branch.
State of 4G in Kenya: Safaricom, Airtel, Telkom, Equitel and Faiba
The past few months have seen significant progress in terms of 5G adoption in the country and continent as well. Telcos like Airtel and Safaricom have expanded their coverage nationwide, offering affordable 5G data bundles and wireless routers as well.
Best Affordable 5G Smartphones Under 35K In Kenya
Device manufacturers in partnership with chip makers and telcos have also been working to launch affordable 5G smartphones such as the the TECNO Camon 20 Premier, Infinix Note 30 VIP, Vivo V27, OPPO Reno10 5G and Redmi Note 12 Pro+.
Across the continent, Kenya comes in third behind Nigeria and South Africa in terms of 5G network subscriptions and the launch of Equitel 5G will bump up our numbers. For context, we have over 500,000 subscribers on 5G while South Africa and Nigeria have 5 million subscriptions and 1.8 million subscriptions respectively.
State of 5G in Africa: Progress So Far
There’s a strong demand for high-speed connectivity, especially with the youth who are data-hungry when it comes to consuming multimedia content(video streaming, music, gaming, live sports, cloud storage), mobile and cloud-based gaming.
