Ten years of cry, boots on the ground
Author / IT Times reporter Qian Lifu
Editors: Qian Lifu, Sun Yan
Ten years later, off-network roaming has finally landed.
At the end of 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held an interconnection seminar in Nanjing, where relevant people introduced the technical solutions of mobile users in the 4G environment. Since then, roaming on different networks has "surfaced", and like number porting, it tugs at the heartstrings of people in the communications industry. Since then, a number of policy documents have explicitly mentioned the implementation of off-network roaming, but for many years, the "boots" have not landed.
Finally, in 2023, the fate trajectory of off-network roaming has taken a major turn. On the 517 World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2023, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Radio and Television jointly announced the launch of the world's first 5G off-network roaming trial in Xinjiang, adding another Chinese solution to the global telecom network opening and sharing.
The positive significance of 5G off-network roaming is self-evident, further promoting the open sharing of 5G networks, effectively reducing network duplication construction, and narrowing the gap between urban and rural areas for 5G development. The trial commercial use in Xinjiang is only the beginning, and more places such as Inner Mongolia will soon pilot 5G off-line roaming. However, there are still many questions to be answered, who will build the network and open it up to other operators? What are the standards for inter-network settlement?
Landed ten years later
Off-network roaming means that when the carrier does not have network coverage, the user can access the network of another operator. In other words, in areas where cross-network roaming services are provided, users can directly use off-network roaming services without changing cards or numbers using terminals that support off-network roaming functions, thereby reducing signal dead zones.
In fact, off-network roaming is not a new thing, such as international roaming is off-network roaming, domestic users use the mobile phone card of domestic operators, after arriving abroad, mobile phones access to the local operator's network for communication. However, the premise of this roaming is that domestic operators and foreign operators have reached cooperation and opened up authentication to each other.
Source: Pixabay
In the mainland, since the beginning of the 4G era, there has been a call for roaming on different networks. In 2014, 14 departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance, jointly issued the "Opinions on the Implementation of the "Broadband China" 2014 Special Action", which clearly stated that "promote the implementation of 4G user roaming over the network". In 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission issued the "Opinions on Implementing the 2017 Special Action to Accelerate and Reduce Fees and Promote the Development of the Real Economy", which mentioned that "research and promote the pilot of cross-network roaming between the national networks of different basic telecommunications enterprises to improve the network coverage level of the whole country, especially in remote areas." ”
After entering the 5G era, because the frequency band of 5G is higher, more base stations need to be built, network investment is more huge, and the voice calling for off-network roaming is greater, and the policy level is also frequent. In March 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Notice on Accelerating the Development of 5G, which stated: "Carry out 5G network sharing and cross-network roaming, accelerate the formation of a network pattern in which multiple networks coexist in hotspot areas and one network in remote areas, and build a resource-intensive and efficient 5G network." In October 2020, a relevant person from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said at the press conference of the State Council's new office that it is necessary to "accelerate the promotion of 5G co-construction and sharing and cross-network roaming, and build a resource-saving and efficient 5G network." ”
"Off-network roaming is to solve the problem of duplicate construction of 5G networks in remote areas, because these places have few users and low utilization, and there is no need to build two networks," said Fu Liang, an independent analyst in the telecom industry.
In fact, it is not only Xinjiang that has carried out pilot projects for roaming on different networks in China. According to the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in November last year, the Communications Administration Bureau of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region organized a scheduling meeting for the pilot work of Chifeng 5G core network roaming live network, and jointly promoted the early completion of the Chifeng pilot work. "The progress in Chifeng City may be slow, so no trial commercial use was announced this time," Fu Liang said.
Share 700M 5G network
5G off-network roaming has now landed, behind this, what will be the specific form of roaming? Who will build 5G networks in remote areas and make them available to other operators?
Fu Liang said that because 5G remote network roaming is piloted in remote areas, which are usually areas covered by the Telecom Universal Service Fund, "In a certain place, which operator applies for the universal service fund, it should build a 5G network locally and share it with other operators." ”
Another industry insider said that the 5G off-network roaming carried out in Xinjiang is the 700MHz 5G network used by users of China Telecom and China Unicom, "The 700MHz 5G base station is shared by China Radio and Television and China Mobile, but the core network has its own." The off-network roaming in Xinjiang is a roaming of users of Telecom and Unicom to the 5G core network of China Radio and Television. This person introduced that not only Xinjiang, but also more provinces will carry out off-network roaming based on 700MHz 5G networks in the future.
This means that the 700MHz network sharing that China Unicom and China Telecom have been waiting for has been substantially promoted.
As we all know, 700MHz has the characteristics of wide signal coverage and strong penetration, which is suitable for large-scale network coverage and low networking costs, especially suitable for 5G network construction coverage in remote areas. Relevant estimates show that the number of base stations required for 700MHz in rural areas is 1/5 of 2.6GHz, 1/6 of 3.5GHz, and 1/9 of 4.9GHz. If a 5G network is built with a level of comparable 4G coverage, 700MHz can reduce construction investment by about 190 billion yuan compared with 3.5GHz, and save about 20 billion yuan in operating costs such as electricity and rental fees every year.
Therefore, in recent years, China Unicom and China Telecom have repeatedly called for the joint construction and sharing of 700MHz 5G networks in rural areas.
During the National "Two Sessions" in 2021, Zhang Yunyong, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from China Unicom, put forward a proposal to position 700MHz spectrum resources as basic public resources covering all mobile communication users, including the population of rural areas, and 700MHz can build a nationwide low-frequency 5G shared access network for rural areas, which will be shared and used by four basic operators to avoid duplicate construction.
In March 2021, Wang Xiaochu, then chairman of China Unicom, said at China Unicom's performance communication meeting that the joint construction and sharing of the 700MHz frequency band would benefit all four operators, because rural areas are not high-volume, high-profit areas, and each operator bears part of the cost, making it more efficient in remote areas such as rural areas.
In August 2021, China Telecom Chairman Ke Ruiwen said at China Telecom's initial public offering of A-shares online investor exchange meeting: "China Telecom is actively promoting the co-construction and sharing of 700MHz in rural areas. At the World 5G Conference held in August 2022, Ke Ruiwen once again said that China Telecom is actively promoting 700MHz 5G sharing.
Nowadays, promoting 700MHz 5G network sharing through cross-network roaming has become a reality, which is a huge benefit to the development of 5G in China, especially for promoting 5G "going to the countryside" and improving coverage in remote areas.
The problem of inter-network settlement is to be solved
5G off-network roaming has been piloted and commercialized, but problems still exist, especially in the formulation of inter-network settlement standards.
Inter-network settlement is not difficult to understand, for example, a mobile phone user of operator A calls a mobile phone user of operator B, and the fee is paid by the user to operator A, but during this period, operator B also provides network services, so operator A has to pay part of the communication fee to operator B.
Cross-network roaming also involves inter-network settlement. If a user of Operator A roams to the network of Carrier B, Operator A also needs to pay the communication fee to Operator B.
"The biggest question is, how to deal with the settlement fee and how to calculate the cost?" Fu Liang said, for example, the construction of 5G base stations in desert areas has a low usage throughout the year, but the construction cost and operation and maintenance costs are very high, which is completely different from high-density population areas. If the inter-network settlement is set low, the operator building the 5G network in remote areas will suffer, and if it is set high, the other operator will suffer a loss, "because the operator has sold the package to the user, and must provide the whole network service, and it is unlikely that the user will pay the network settlement fee." ”
Source: Pixabay
Another industry insider said, "At present, in Xinjiang, although 5G remote network roaming has been trialed for commercial use, the settlement method and fee have not yet been negotiated. ”
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that it will actively and steadily promote the trial commercial use of 5G off-network roaming, further consolidate and improve the mainland's 5G network service capabilities, and better contribute to the improvement of quality, cost reduction and efficiency in production, life and governance.
Typesetting / Ji Jiaying
Photo / pixabay Oriental IC
Source: IT Times public account vittimes
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