New technology connects the new future! From cloud games to industrial robots, from smart light poles to unmanned driving, digital transformation is surging and the future of intelligent connectivity has come! Facing the era of intelligent connection, how should the industrial chain seize new opportunities, release new kinetic energy, and help new growth; to this end, C114 has planned and launched a large-scale topic of "New Technology Connects the New Future", inviting top industry experts to interpret for you and explore the future of wireless connectivity!
Today, we have the honor to invite Zhang Xinsheng, executive vice president of the Future Mobile Communication Forum. How does he see the industry's spectacular development over the past three decades? Based on the present, how does he view the achievements and shortcomings of the development of the 5G industry, and how should 5G have a "chemical reaction" with the vertical industry? Facing the future of 6G, how will the mobile communication industry continue to evolve and release greater value in the digital and intelligent transformation of the whole society?
Looking back: from "a golden flower" to "dividing the world equally"
As a "veteran" of the industry, Zhang Xinsheng can be said to be a witness, participant and promoter of the vigorous development of the domestic mobile communication industry, and has experienced the rise of the mainland mobile communication industry with 1G blank, 2G following, 3G breakthrough, 4G synchronization, and 5G leadership.
Since the birth of human society, faster and more efficient communication connections have become the unswerving pursuit of human beings. Modern mobile communications, marked by the invention of the first generation of communication technology (1G) in 1986, have greatly changed people's lifestyles and become one of the most important driving forces for social development. Due to various reasons, the mainland mobile communication industry is basically missing in the 1G era.
Zhang Xinsheng recalled that in the face of strong market demand, in the national "Eighth Five-Year" communication development plan, the mainland officially launched the scientific research and development of 2G technology. According to the law of the development of the mobile communication industry, the research and development work is divided into two directions of wireless access and exchange. Although from the perspective of the market, the mainland was still in the early stages of the industrial development of the "seven countries and eight systems" at that time, the investment in scientific research in the early stage was an industrial golden flower, and a group of valuable talents cultivated became the backbone of the development of the mainland's mobile communications industry.
The explosive growth and demand of mobile communications in China has greatly enhanced the confidence of the industrial chain, "In the 3G era, we have begun to seriously think about how to seize the strategic commanding heights and promote the sustained growth of the industry." We boldly put forward a vision, can we make an international standard? At the "Fragrant Hills Conference" in 1998, TD-SCDMA took the stage of history, and after a series of arduous efforts, finally on May 16, 2000, TD-SCDMA was officially approved by ITU as the third generation of mobile communication international standards. On March 16, 2001, all TD-SCDMA's technical solutions were officially accepted by 3GPP.
TD-SCDMA among the international standards, is only the "first step in the long march", in the face of the still weak mobile communication industry foundation, industrialization and commercialization is a more difficult road. "At that time, we proposed the goal of 'one out of three worlds'." Zhang Xinsheng said. In his view, the biggest difficulty facing the industrialization of TD-SCDMA lies in the chip and terminal; in the end, under the impetus of the "troika" of the TD Alliance + TD Forum + Technical Expert Group, under the coordinated efforts of the industrial ecology, through the industrial innovation and promotion system that combines production, education and research, the mainland has successfully realized the large-scale commercial use of TD-SCDMA.
In fact, not only TD-SCDMA, relying on the huge domestic market, WCDMA and CDMA2000 have also developed well in China. But the 3G standard itself is facing the torture of history, "Where is the real demand for 3G?" "This is also a question that Zhang Xinsheng has been thinking about." The mission of 3G lies in the Internet, but in the design of standards and key technologies, 3G is difficult to meet the rapid development needs of the mobile Internet. "This is also doomed to the embarrassing end of 3G." However, for the development of domestic 3G, especially the industrialization of TD-SCDMA standards, Zhang Xinsheng gave high praise. He believes that through the commercial use of TD-SCDMA, the mainland mobile communication industry has achieved a breakthrough in the whole industry chain of system equipment, terminals and chips.
The development of mobile communications has always been "a generation of use, a generation of construction, and a generation of research and development". Zhang Xinsheng pointed out that the relevant departments launched the 4G strategic development plan in 2005, clarifying the top-level design of developing 4G on the basis of existing advantages. "TDD and smart antennas are both well designed, and coupled with new technology concepts such as OFDM, we launched TD-LTE." The Future Mobile Communications Forum, which aims to promote the formation of a global technological consensus, also came into being at the beginning of the 4G strategic development plan.
In the 4G era, TD-LTE and LTE FDD have become the two major technical standards for global 4G, achieving "equal division of the world". As the fastest-growing mobile communication technology in China, TD-LTE has made gratifying progress in both network deployment and user scale in the official commercial use of TD-LTE in one year, further driving the whole industry chain to make a breakthrough.
The Present: From "Changing Lives" to "Changing Society"
Zhang Xinsheng pointed out that from the 1st generation to the 4th generation of mobile communication technology, it revolves around the communication between people, and the 5th generation of mobile communication technology is not only a substantial increase in transmission speed, but also a fundamental change in reliability and timely delay, laying the foundation for 5G from "changing life" to "changing society".
As the first global unified mobile communication standard, 5G has developed rapidly around the world. According to GSA data, as of the end of February 2022, 209 operators had launched 5G services that comply with the 3GPP standard in 83 countries. As of the end of February, the total number of 5G base stations in mainland China reached 1.506 million, the number of 5G package users exceeded 700 million, and the penetration rate of 5G package users has exceeded 45%.
It can be said that the basic disk of 5G 2C has been solid. But in Zhang Xinsheng's view, 5G is still a long way to go. "We have now entered the era of digital economy, and developing the digital economy, promoting digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, and promoting the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy are the inevitable choices of the mainland, and also the development opportunities and historical missions of the 5G industry."
The deep integration of 5G and vertical industries is the only way to unlock the potential of 5G, but it is by no means easy. Can the current 5G network and ecosystem be supported? Is there a strong level of digitalization and a willingness to change in vertical industries? Can equipment vendors/operators understand the business production processes and pain points of vertical industries? How to achieve scale replication under fragmentation requirements? How to ensure roi of investment under a long retrofit cycle? These are all questions that 5G needs to answer in the 2B market.
Zhang Xinsheng pointed out that if 5G wants to release its huge potential, it should get out of the connection trap and build a new ecosystem that integrates wireless technology, network technology, terminal technology and application technology as a whole. "The concept of '5G deep ploughing, integration and symbiosis' proposed by the 2021 World 5G Conference is because we found that if 5G wants to succeed, it will inevitably need deep ploughing, synchronous deep ploughing in the 2C/2B two markets; if you want to have the ability of deep ploughing, you must be communicable and symbiotic, realize technology integration, industrial integration and ecological integration, and ultimately achieve 5G integration and application." In fact, integrated development has become the consensus of the industry. ”
In Zhang Xinsheng's view, integration is divided into several levels. The first is the integration of CT and IT, CT network absorbs IT elasticity, flexibility and other technical characteristics, to solve the bit transmission and information data driven data application value problems For example, in the 5G core network, the virtualization and cloud design concept is generally adopted. The second is the integration of ICT and big data and artificial intelligence, improving the level of intelligence of traditional information and communication infrastructure, and becoming a new type of intelligent information infrastructure in the era of digital economy, for example, ai capabilities have been introduced in a large number of 5G networks for network planning and operation and maintenance. The third is the integration of ICT and OT, combined with the business production needs of vertical industries, to evolve to a deterministic network, and to help the digital transformation of thousands of industries.
Zhang Xinsheng stressed that the 5G integration application of vertical industries is not only a technical problem, but also an industrial ecological problem, which requires the collective wisdom and efforts of the entire 5G industry chain, including chips, terminals, system equipment, operators, and industry users.
Among them, Zhang Xinsheng pays great attention to the two sub-ecologies of terminal and edge. Zhang Xinsheng believes that how to emphasize the importance of terminals is not excessive, in the 2C and 2B markets, 5G terminals need to continue to innovate. On the 2C side, 5G terminals need more forms to fully stimulate the characteristics of 5G large bandwidth and low latency in ubiquitous scenarios to bring better user experience; on the 2B side, 5G terminals need to continue to reduce costs, increase industry attributes, and lay the foundation for 5G convergence industry applications. The intelligent edge is another important starting point for 5G industry applications. Zhang Xinsheng pointed out that around edge computing, "symbiosis" is an inevitable choice. The ICT industry should be in awe of vertical industries, "if you want vertical industries to think, you can solve the pain point problem." ”
The Future: The "Sea of Stars" from 5GA to 6G
5G is in the ascendant, and 6G is emerging. The 3GPP organization plans to carry out research on 6G in 2023, and the standardization of 6G will begin in the second half of 2025, and countries with advanced communications have successively launched 6G research and development. In accordance with the tradition of "commercial generation, research and development generation", it is not too early to talk about 6G.
But moving from 5G to 6G is not achieved overnight. Today, when 5G has begun to be commercialized, 5G technology is still moving forward. At its April 27, 2021 meeting, the 3GPP officially named 5G-Advanced the name of the 5G-Advanced. The December meeting of the same year identified 5G-Advanced's research topics in R18. 5G-Advanced will define new goals and new capabilities for the subsequent development of 5G, enabling 5G to generate greater social and economic value through network evolution and technological enhancement.
In Zhang Xinsheng's view, 5G-Advanced is a necessary stage of 5G development, and it is basically unrealistic to skip 5G to develop 6G. 5G-Advanced has greatly improved the performance of 5G networks and expanded the application scenarios of 5G networks, laying a solid foundation for exerting the greater value of 5G in the era of digital economy.
Facing the evolution of 6G, Zhang Xinsheng stressed the need to continue the successful experience of the past and develop 6G on the basis of existing advantages. It can also be seen at the Global 6G Technology Conference held at this year's Future Mobile Communication Forum that at present, around the 6G vision, the domestic academic and industrial circles have basically reached a consensus.
Zhang Xinsheng pointed out that when moving towards 6G, it is necessary to clearly realize that compared with 6G and 5G, the construction elements are very different. The development of anything is supported by elements, and without elements it cannot be further developed. Therefore, before developing 6G, the elements must first be determined to determine which key technologies are the focus of 6G development.
Looking back on the magnificent 30 years of mobile communications, the industry has been innovating around three major elements such as frequency efficiency, spectrum and density, striving to improve frequency efficiency, expand spectrum and introduce multi-antenna technology for spatial multiplexing. From the initial 2G to the current commercial 5G, the spectrum has moved from low frequency to intermediate frequency, and the introduction of millimeter wave has also been put on the agenda; there has also been a huge innovation in coding and modulation and demodulation methods; and the multi-antenna technology represented by Massive-MIMO has greatly improved network capacity and performance. All these innovations have given more possibilities for connection, and have also created a colorful mobile communication industry ecology.
Zhang Xinsheng said that the element resources in the 6G era have been greatly expanded, adding data, computing power and energy on the basis of the original, and these six elements together constitute 6G full of infinite possibilities. "What is 6G and how to achieve 6G, the industry is still discussing. But 6G is not a simple extension of 5G, 6G will converge connectivity, perception, computing and AI capabilities, breaking the boundaries of the physical world and the digital world, 6G networks not only have KPIs (Key Performance Indicator), but also KVI (Key Value Indicator), serving more markets and verticals. "C114 Communication Network Lesi