👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – FAAN’s new pickup line

South Africa is getting another 5G network, but this one has a slightly different plan. Comsol, a South African telecom company, is building the network and selling access to other businesses.

What happened? Comsol has started selling wholesale access to a national 5G network built specifically for home broadband. The network will be available to Internet service providers (ISPs), mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), and other resellers, while Comsol stays behind the scenes handling the infrastructure.

Explain like I’m new here: Normally, a telecom company builds the network and sells the internet service directly to customers. Comsol, however, builds and operates the 5G network that an ISP or MVNO can use to create a home broadband package, decide what to charge, and sell it under its own brand.

What’s interesting: South Africa already has a mature 5G market. MTN and Vodacom launched the country’s first 5G networks in 2020, while Telkom and Rain have also built 5G offerings. In 2022, MTN had the fastest median 5G download speed, according to GSMA. Comsol wants to become the network that other businesses can use to compete with these heavyweights.

We’ve seen this before: Ghana’s Next-Gen InfraCo (NGIC) launched in 2024 as a shared 4G/5G infrastructure company and commenced operations in March, with the idea that mobile operators and Internet providers could use one national network instead of each building everything themselves. 

Comsol is doing something similar, although its network is focused on 5G home broadband rather than being a shared mobile network for the whole country.

What does this mean for you? An interesting thing to look out for will be…