Author: Hao Junhui Source: IT Times
On January 25, China Telecom announced that 5G news was officially commercialized. As the first telecom operator to commercialize 5G messaging, China Telecom introduced the charging policy, development direction and terminal promotion plan of 5G messaging for the first time.
Since April 2020, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom jointly released the "5G News White Paper", the time point of 5G news commercialization has been continuously postponed, and now China Telecom has taken the lead in hammering out the final sound, which is a "reassuring pill" for the industry.
Once commercialization is clear, it is urgent to promote the terminal coverage of 5G messages and the formulation and implementation of a series of standard specifications.
On December 22, 2021, three of the 513 industry standards published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology 'Announcement No. 33 of 2021' involve 5G messages, including 5G message terminal test methods, 5G message terminal technical requirements, and overall technical requirements for 5G messages, which are expected to be implemented on April 1 this year. At the 5G News Summit Forum held in January 2022, the 5G Message Working Group said that four group standards, including the 5G Message Service Display Specification, the Dual SIM 5G Message Terminal Technical Specification, the 5G Message Terminal and Network Compatibility Test Specification, and the Chatbot Name Specification, are expected to be released this year.
Since its own concept, it has been placed by telecom operators on the "5G application explosion" high hopes of 5G news, 2022, will finally be on the table.
Pioneer, set a benchmark
Regarding 5G news, in the past two years, the three telecom operators have successively disclosed their progress, but the first to announce the official commercial use is China Telecom. However, China Unicom also announced the launch of trial commercial use in November 2021, but China Mobile, which has the largest number of mobile users, is not obvious.
From the beginning of the joint release of the white paper, to the current respective evasion, it is not difficult to understand. At the China Telecom 5G commercial conference, Miao Jianhua, president of the China Communications Enterprise Association, revealed that operators have not yet reached an agreement on the operation mode of 5G messaging business, which is a key point affecting the formation of 5G news synergy.
Therefore, China Telecom, the first to officially announce commercial use, has the meaning of "wind vane" to some extent. According to Zhang Xiaojun, deputy general manager of China Telecom's marketing department, at present, China Telecom has completed the construction of 5G messaging platform, the network to the terminal has been fully opened, the business has been fully loaded, and the operation system has been basically completed, and 5G news will be the focus of China Telecom's overall development in 2022.
In terms of operation, China Telecom's 5G news is divided into two types of business: personal and industry. 5G messages for individuals are similar to SMS, receiving them for free and sending them for a fee, but there will be multiple billing models and packages. 5G messages for enterprises are more like the mini programs in WeChat, empowering enterprises to digitally transform and provide new options for the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy for thousands of industries, and the charging model is distributed according to the types of 5G messages sent and used by enterprises, such as downlinks and conversational methods, but consumers receive these enterprise 5G messages and replies for free.
The "weapon" of industrial digitalization
There is no doubt that industry applications will be the most important development space for 5G news, and Miao Jianhua suggested in his speech that it is necessary to further accelerate the creation of benchmarking demonstrations and promote regional pilots. Taking the "Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Bloom Cup 5G News Commercial Benchmarking Competition" as an opportunity, we will promote the landing of "5G News Town" and promote the deep integration of industry scenarios and 5G news.
The so-called "5G news town" means that some small towns and small cities can be selected to do 5G news pilots, around the local characteristics, to provide a complete experience scenario of 5G message services for all users in the region, which can be integrated through the pilot widening scene, and can also show the multi-dimensional value of 5G news for the government, enterprises, residents and other users.
Earlier, Fu Guoqiang, an expert at the Institute of Technology and Standards of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and deputy head of the 5G News Working Group, said in introducing the key work of the 5G News Working Group in 2022 that in 2022, the focus of the 5G News Working Group will shift to the four directions of vertical industry norms, laboratory services, regional pilot demonstrations, and excellent case exploration.
In fact, it is not surprising that China Telecom has become the first telecom operator to commercialize 5G news, and in the field of industrial digitalization, China Telecom has always been a leader.
According to the Q3 financial report, in the first three quarters, the digital business of China's telecom industry maintained rapid growth, with revenue reaching RMB74.090 billion, an increase of 16.8% year-on-year, and the revenue scale and market share remained industry-leading.
According to the data of multiple analyst institutions, China Telecom ranks first in the industry in the field of industrial digitalization, and is the largest public cloud of IDC service providers and operators in China.
"As an innovative message interaction product in the 5G era, 5G messaging is an important service in the implementation of the company's 'cloud to digital transfer' strategy, and will become an important basic service for operators." From the speech of Tang Ke, deputy general manager of China Telecom Group, at the press conference on the same day, it can be clearly seen that China Telecom has high hopes for 5G news.
Standard landing Terminal full coverage
At present, the biggest obstacle in the face of 5G news is undoubtedly the terminal.
5G messages, simply understood, are rich media short messages, somewhat similar to iMessage in the iPhone, which can directly text messages, pictures, videos and even directly enter the Mini Program with friends in the address book. In the past, Huawei, OPPO, vivo and other mobile phones have similar functions, which are configured by mobile phone manufacturers at the bottom of the system, and even have formed their own industrial chains. However, the terminals are not connected, and the relationship between mobile phone manufacturers, advertisers, and agents is complicated, and it has been reported in the IT Times that there have been cases of disguised brand owners defrauding consumers.
5G news led by operators, strictly speaking, belongs to the basic information service of telecommunications, from the perspective of Internet platform governance and personal information protection, it has a higher level of security than ordinary Internet applications, but as a "connector", there is still a big gap in the coordination and linkage of terminal enterprises, platform service providers, content service providers, etc. in technology research and development, application promotion, achievement transformation, etc.
"IT Times" reporter learned in the previous interview that 5G news has not progressed smoothly before, that is, it is stuck in the interface between the terminal coverage and the three major operators, so the first suggestion put forward by Miao Jianhua is to further accelerate the large-scale coverage of 5G message terminals. Promote the rapid development of 5G terminals and lead the formation of 5G messages on a larger scale.
In this regard, Zhang Xiaojun said that on the one hand, China Telecom will accelerate the coverage of 5G message terminals, on the other hand, China Telecom's own brands, such as Tianyi-1, Mai Mang and other models, will take the lead in supporting 5G news, thereby promoting the acceleration of the overall terminal scale.
For promoting terminal manufacturers to support standardized products, for China Telecom, it is already a familiar road. In the early years, it was under the impetus of China Telecom that the "all-Netcom" mobile phone became the standard in the 4G era, and consumers finally got rid of the dilemma of being bound by the "number" of the mobile phone.
Nowadays, China Telecom is already an important leader in the terminal industry chain, at the Tianyi Wisdom Expo held in November 2021, China Telecom centralized procurement of 100 million mobile phones from Lenovo, realme, millet, OPPO and other manufacturers, and in 2022, the amount of all-category terminal collection will reach 35 billion yuan, the collection of more than 300 categories, and the amount of contract subsidies will exceed 10 billion yuan.
With the implementation of a series of standards and specifications for 5G messaging in 2022, there is reason to believe that by the end of 2022, terminals will no longer be the biggest bottleneck of 5G messaging.