Seychelles mobile operator, Cable and Wireless Seychelles (CWS) has officially launched 5G network in partnership with Huawei Technologies.

CWS CEO Charles Hammond said 5G is a totally safe technology that has no scientific link to any diseases whatsoever.

He said 5G fuels social and economic development through AI, cloud computing and IOT.

Hammond said while new technology may take time to be implemented in small countries and economies, in Seychelles, the technology has been implemented and that CWS customers will be able to experience 5G network.

“We are now in the new age of 5G. It will enable smarter and more convenient living and working environment helping to digitalise economy and society as it will deliver amazing data speed, enabling significantly better customer experience,” he said.

Benjamin Choppy, Principal of the Department of Information, Communications and Technology, said there is no real documentation that shows that 5G has health hazard implications to it.

“We are looking at it as new development and innovation and we have observed that there is a lot of concern raised by the public on the health problems it may cause. But for now, we are following guidance from the World Health Organisation,” Choppy said.

He also announced that internet users in Seychelles used nearly 40% more data in the first three months of 2020 compared with the same period last year.

He said data usage may increase even more in the second quarter of 2020 due to the COVID-19 induced home confinement as many people work from home, students did online school work and families sought more home entertainment.

According to a report by Seychelles News Agency, mobile data downloads from January to March this year was 6 million Gigabytes compared to 4.5 million Gigabytes for the same three months period in 2019.

Data from World Internet Stats shows that there were 71, 300 internet users in Seychelles as of December 2019, representing a penetration rate of 72.5%.