Egypt Completes Africa’s First 6GHz Mobile Trial, Hitting 1.7Gbps Speeds
Egypt has completed what it says is Africa’s first mobile network trial using the upper 6GHz spectrum, reaching download speeds of around 1.7Gbps per user as regulators explore new frequencies capable of supporting the next phase of high-capacity mobile connectivity.
The trial was conducted by Egypt’s National
Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) in collaboration with Telecom Egypt and Huawei, marking the first successful test of the U6GHz band for mobile services on the continent.
During the trial, the partners activated a mobile base station operating on the 6GHz band and successfully completed a data call over the spectrum, testing its potential to add capacity to mobile networks as data consumption continues to grow.
The 6GHz range is increasingly important to the future of wireless connectivity because of the larger blocks of spectrum it can potentially provide. For mobile operators, additional mid-band spectrum could help deliver higher speeds and greater network capacity without relying solely on much higher-frequency bands with more limited coverage.
Results from the Egyptian trial showed speeds of approximately 1.7Gbps for a single user, highlighting the band’s potential to support high-capacity mobile services, particularly in densely populated areas and locations where networks face heavy traffic.
Egypt looks beyond today’s 5G networks
The experiment is not an immediate commercial launch of 6GHz mobile services. Instead, it gives the regulator and operators technical data to assess how the spectrum could be incorporated into Egypt’s longer-term network strategy as 5G adoption expands and the industry begins preparing for technologies beyond current-generation networks.
NTRA CEO Mohamed Shamroukh said U6GHz is among the strategic spectrum bands being considered as part of Egypt’s long-term national spectrum plan for 2030–2035.
According to Shamroukh, the regulator is evaluating the spectrum resources that will be needed to accommodate rapidly evolving communications technologies and prepare the country’s digital infrastructure for next-generation applications.
The trial therefore provides an early indication of how the 6GHz band could be used to address one of the telecommunications industry’s biggest challenges: finding sufficient spectrum to handle continued growth in mobile data without compromising network performance.
Higher network capacity could become particularly important as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, Internet of Things deployments and augmented and virtual reality applications generate larger volumes of data and require increasingly reliable connectivity.
For NTRA, the experiment also forms part of a wider effort to manage Egypt’s spectrum resources more efficiently while testing emerging technologies before decisions are made about their future commercial use.
The successful test puts Egypt at the front of Africa’s early experimentation with U6GHz for mobile connectivity, although further regulatory, technical and commercial steps would be required before the spectrum could become part of mainstream mobile networks.
With 5G still expanding across the Egyptian market, the 6GHz trial offers an early glimpse of the additional spectrum infrastructure that could eventually be needed to support the country’s next wave of mobile services.