China Telecom Liu Yang: Create a healthy, orderly and benign development of the 5G small base station industry ecology

After nearly 3 years of commercial deployment, the construction of 5G in mainland China has entered a stage of high-quality development. The needs of thousands of industries are fragmented and complex, and it is difficult to meet all differentiated needs with a unified network deployment method. 5G small base stations have the characteristics of flexibility, agility, low energy consumption, and high cost performance, which can be well adapted to a variety of needs. In particular, the 5G open platform small base station, with its unique technology and market advantages, will surely build the cornerstone of the 5G network ecology in the vertical industry.

"We want to avoid some disorderly competition, which in turn promotes the healthy circulation and development of the entire industry." On April 7, 2022, the "5G Small Base Station Empowerment Vertical Industry Seminar" with the theme of "Open Innovation, Integration Empowerment" was successfully held, and Liu Yang, team director of the 6G Research Center of China Telecom Research Institute, was invited to attend and deliver a keynote speech, introducing the progress and future layout of China Telecom in the 5G small base station market.

Create a healthy and benign industrial ecology

Promote the localization of 5G small base stations

5G base stations include macro base stations and small base stations. By the end of 2021, the mainland has built and opened a total of 1.425 million 5G base stations, and more than 650,000 new 5G base stations will be built in 2021. At present, the total number of 5G base stations accounts for more than 60% of the world, and the 5G network has covered all prefecture-level urban areas, more than 98% of county urban areas and 80% of townships and towns. In the environment of large-scale construction of continuous outdoor coverage of 5G, small base stations are about to officially take the stage, on the one hand, as a supplement to macro base stations, effectively enhance indoor depth coverage, on the other hand, in-depth vertical industry segmentation scenarios, to help "light up" thousands of industries.

However, at present, 5G small cell towers are still facing problems such as increasing production and R&D costs, and complex operation and maintenance. "Judging from the current situation of the 5G small base station industry, its production costs and research and development costs are increasing, especially in the vertical industry for To B." According to Liu Yang, affected by the epidemic, the global supply chain continues to be tight, and the prices of raw materials and chips have risen, resulting in rising manufacturing costs for small stations. In addition, in terms of R&D investment, in order to maintain product competitiveness, it is necessary to continuously increase manpower investment in R&D, so the cost of new product research and development is increasing. In terms of delivery and after-sales investment, in order to ensure the efficient promotion, accelerated landing and stable operation of small stations, the labor costs of delivery and after-sales investment are also relatively high.

"We hope to create a healthy and benign small base station industry ecology, so as to promote the healthy development of the industry." On the one hand, it will help promote continuous innovation and meet the growing demand for diversified network services by improving product competitiveness. On the other hand, we also hope to avoid some disorderly competition, thereby promoting the healthy circulation and development of the entire industry. Liu Yang specifically mentioned.

At present, some of the core devices of 5G small base stations, such as FPGAs, Transceiver, etc. are still from abroad, and in the process of the overall route evolution of 5G small base stations, further consideration needs to be given to improving the localization level of 5G small base stations. "The localization of 5G small base stations requires the integration of upstream and downstream industries, through integration, optimization and testing, to accelerate the maturity and large-scale commercialization of domestic chips, and promote the localization of 5G network equipment." In this regard, Liu Yang made suggestions.

Yunhua Small Station is coming

Looking forward to the "one cloud" in the 6G era

At present, there are many categories of 5G vertical industries, and the requirements are fragmented and complex, and it is difficult to meet the differentiated needs of customers with a unified network deployment method. The 5G small base station has the characteristics of good performance, low cost, flexible deployment, and visualization of operation and maintenance, which can meet the needs of industry users in an economical, efficient and fast manner, so the application prospects of 5G small base stations in the industry market are highly expected.

Liu Yang also said that 5G small base stations can meet the customized needs of industry networks and adapt to more industry scenarios through four customized air interface capabilities. According to reports, China Telecom has done a lot of experiments and pilot applications in the vertical industry combined with 5G small base stations, "We hope to be able to face the edge cloud network integration, and achieve integrated services for network access and service applications for specific scenarios." Liu Yang said, "At the same time, the form of integrated deployment is also a way to realize the future of cloud-based small stations." ”

However, the edge computing and network functions in the 5G stage are relatively separate, edge computing does not really participate in the network to carry services, and the network does not use edge computing to improve the intelligence of operation and maintenance, and the two have not really merged. However, in the 6G era, networking, computing, and intelligence will be deeply integrated, and the development of network cloudification will evolve to the stage of "one cloud". In the 6G era, the terminal or user may not be served by a certain base station, but by a "cloud". Liu Yang said.

Previously, China Telecom proposed that cloud-network integration is the core feature of intelligent and comprehensive digital information infrastructure, and took the lead in practicing it in the industry, and in November 2020, China Telecom released the "Cloud-Network Integration 2030 Technology White Paper", which clearly put forward the 16-character cloud-network integration development principle of "network is the foundation, cloud is the core, network moves with the cloud, and cloud-network integration is integrated". Focus on the integration of network, computing power and storage of the three major resources, to achieve the three unification of technology base, operation management and supply mode, so as to form a real digital platform, to achieve the service of various capabilities.

Finally, for "one cloud", Liu Yang expressed his hope to achieve two capabilities. The first is to open up the ability of wireless access networks. For capacity openness, the 5G core network has corresponding support, and what can be done at present is more RAN side capability opening and data extraction. The second is intelligent control, which can control the wireless access network through intelligent computing power such as AI, and gradually realize the intelligent analysis of data, the resource allocation of the network, and the autonomy of the resource library.

End

Author: Wang Yurong

Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Fan Fan

Review: Shen Qing

Producer: Liu Qicheng

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