Transitioning to Society 5.0 in Africa: Tools to Support ICT Infrastructure Sharing

Society 5.0 represents an opportunity to transform the economy and create a digital society with goal of long-term sustainable development economic growth. There is growing importance boosting ICT as effective efficient means achieving this transformation, Target 9c UN Sustainable Development Goals ‘Significantly increase access information communications technology strive provide universal affordable Internet in least developed countries’. Mobile telecommunication systems have become most convenient communicating world, such, they are revolutionizing business operations. Nigeria fastest market Africa, approximately 298 million subscribers accommodated by over 53,000 base transceiver stations (BTSs) which largely concentrated urban areas. As result increasing subscribers, all mobile network service providers building new BTSs, often without considering existing infrastructure. This has led proliferation masts, defacing environment causing unnecessary environmental pollution BTSs powered diesel generators. It therefore becoming paramount for regulatory body enforce principles infrastructure sharing colocation sites provider improve availability, reliability, scalability, customer satisfaction sustainability. paper argues, through tools their application case study, that not only feasible if supported correctly but also offers potential reduce operational capital expenditure, number required rapidly telecoms industry doing so pollution.