rain and Huawei Deploy Sub-1GHz 5G in South Africa
South African telecoms operator rain has partnered with Huawei to roll out a commercial sub-1 GHz Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) 5G network.
rain has already achieved a large-scale footprint with this technology across major South African cities and will expand it to encompass thousands of sites across the nation.
Overcoming technical barriers
While low-frequency spectrum naturally provides deep indoor penetration and wide coverage, it has traditionally struggled to deliver high capacity.
To resolve this challenge, the partners are using Massive MIMO technology, which serves as a foundation for high-capacity networks.
Integrating this antenna system with low-band Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) spectrum has required years of technical innovation in radio architecture, signal processing and interference management.
Huawei states that this successful implementation on rain's live network marks the first time that a mobile service using low-band spectrum can simultaneously offer wide-area reach, deep indoor penetration and the high spectral efficiency of advanced antenna systems.
Realising commercial benefits
“From launching South Africa's first commercial 5G network in 2019 to today's deployment, our partnership with Huawei has always been about more than technology,” says Conrad Leigh, CEO of rain South Africa.
“It's about solving difficult problems, driving innovation, and building the networks that will power the future,” says Conrad.
Performance data from the live sites shows 5dB and 3dB improvements in uplink and downlink, respectively, while the network capacity is up to three times higher – when compared with conventional 4T4R configurations.
These statistics indicate that mobile operators can significantly improve subscriber experiences, expand 5G coverage and make far more efficient use of their commercial spectrum assets, using this approach.
Delivering future networks
This project continues a history of collaboration between the two companies focused on finding practical solutions to real-world deployment challenges.
“This is more than a network upgrade. It is a global technology milestone,” says Fang Xiang, Huawei's Corporate Vice President and President of Wireless Network Solutions.
“The deployment of sub-1 GHz Massive MIMO 5G sites demonstrates leading network competitiveness in spectral efficiency, coverage, latency, uplink performance, and energy efficiency.”
“This provides strong support for rain as it looks to strengthen its advanced wireless foundation.”
rain acquired spectrum in the 700MHz band from an auction in 2022, complementing its spectrum holdings in the 1.8GHz, 2.6GHz and 3.6GHz bands. The operator states that it was the first in South Africa to launch a commercial 5G standalone access service in 2020 before it launched its national 4G network in 2023.
