Editor's note: On June 6, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a 5G commercial license, marking China's official entry into the 5G commercial era. Over the past five years, China's information and communication industry has worked hard to overcome difficulties, forming a leading edge in the system in standard patents, network construction, equipment manufacturing, application innovation, etc., and contributing to the "China Plan" to promote the construction of an open, inclusive, inclusive and win-win global industrial ecology. China Electronics News has launched a series of reports on "5G in the past five years" to comprehensively display the development achievements of all links in the 5G industry chain. Stay tuned.
A 5G smart fishing boat project off the coast of Yangjiang, Guangdong
As of the end of March this year, a total of 3.647 million 5G base stations have been built in mainland China, with 874 million 5G mobile phone users, and 5G network coverage has been achieved in all prefecture-level and county-level urban areas across the country. 5G applications have been integrated into 74 major categories of the national economy, and the total economic output directly driven by 5G will reach 1.86 trillion yuan in 2023......
From the official first step of 5G commercial use in 2019 to the construction of the world's largest 5G standalone (SA) network, in the past five years, mainland 5G has always adhered to the principle of "moderate advancement, simultaneous construction and application".
Today, China's 5G development has entered the second half, and the future evolution trend has attracted global attention. Jin Zhuanglong, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said that it is necessary to consolidate and enhance the competitive advantage and leading position of the information and communication industry, build 5G and other information facilities in advance, and promote 5G to empower "thousands of industries"; At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen 5G evolution, support the development of 5G-A, and increase the research and development of 6G technology.
The Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) predicts that by the end of 2024, the number of 5G connections in China will reach 1 billion; By 2030, this number will exceed 1.6 billion, accounting for nearly one-third of the global total. By then, China's 5G adoption rate will be close to 90%, making it a major global market.
Moderately advanced "traction"
In early May, the motherland is full of red and willow green, and the uninhabited area of Hoh Xil at an altitude of more than 4,800 meters is full of frozen lakes and withered yellow grasslands. At the protection station not far from Zhuo Nai Lake in the hinterland of Hoh Xil, there is a 5G base station, which makes people feel the rare traces of human civilization in the "no man's land".
A 5G base station next to the Zhuo Nai Lake Protection Station in the hinterland of Hoh Xil
"This 5G base station is the first time in the country to use multi-hop long-distance and large-bandwidth microwave transmission in high-altitude, perennial winds and frozen ground areas, and the construction of 5G sites has been completed on the premise of minimizing the environmental impact on the protected area." Wang Lianjie, deputy manager of the network department of Qinghai Mobile Golmud Branch, said that the base station has been in use for one year, and the 7-kilometer area around the protection station has achieved 5G+4K signal transmission, which has brought great convenience to the ecological and environmental protection work of Hoh Xil.
Since the commercialization of 5G, the mainland has adhered to the principle of "moderate advancement" and promoted the cumulative investment of telecom operators of nearly 1 trillion yuan. The world's largest 5G standalone network has been built. From the top of the world to the deep underground mines, from the northern tip of China to the islands and reefs of the South China Sea, from the "city-to-city" and "county-to-county" to towns and administrative villages...... Communicators climb snow-capped mountains, cross forests and seas, wade through torrents, and leap deep streams, so that the base stations built across mountains and seas continue to shorten the distance between people, China and the world.
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the first quarter of this year, the mainland has built a total of 3.647 million 5G base stations, with about 26 base stations per 10,000 people, and the 5G user penetration rate has exceeded 60%. According to the "14th Five-Year Plan" for the development of the information and communication industry, the target of "26 5G base stations per 10,000 people in 2025, and the penetration rate of 5G users will increase from 15% in 2020 to 56%", which is almost a year and a half ahead of schedule.
Unlike most countries that choose non-standalone (NSA) solutions, the mainland has chosen to deploy standalone solutions from a "high starting point" from the beginning of 5G construction. Such a high-quality 5G network brings the characteristics of end-to-end network slicing, massive connections, and ultra-high reliability 5G to the extreme. The investment in 5G construction has driven the growth of the information and communication industry chain, continuous technological breakthroughs, and a strong global industrial voice. Up to now, the global proportion of 5G SEP declarations in mainland China has continued to lead the world. 5G customized base stations and lightweight core gateways have been commercially deployed; Industrial gateways, CPE, inspection robots and other industry terminal forms have been continuously improved; The price of 5G modules has dropped significantly.
In order to provide better services for more users, at the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other 11 departments jointly issued a notice to carry out a special action of "signal upgrading" to strengthen network coverage in 11 key scenarios such as government affairs centers, cultural tourism, medical institutions, and transportation hubs. The special action proposes that by the end of 2025, more than 120,000 key places will achieve deep mobile network coverage, 30,000 kilometers of railways, 500,000 kilometers of highways, and 200 subway lines will achieve continuous mobile network coverage, and the proportion of mobile network compliance rate will not be less than 95%, and the proportion of 5G traffic will be significantly increased.
The construction should not only be moderately advanced, but also intensive and efficient. Since the commercialization of 5G, China has created a new model of network construction, realizing the co-construction and sharing of towers, computer rooms, base stations and other levels, effectively promoting the intensive, efficient, green and low-carbon development of 5G. "By the end of 2023, more than 90% of base stations will be co-built and shared. The energy consumption of a single site of 5G base stations is reduced by more than 20% compared with the initial stage of commercial use. Zhao Zhiguo, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, revealed.
In order to further reduce the cost of duplicate 5G network construction in remote areas and allow users to "switch inductively" to operators' networks to use 5G services, under the organization and guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the four major telecom operators jointly promoted co-construction and sharing, and jointly launched the world's first 5G cross-network roaming trial commercial trial in Xinjiang during the 2023 World Telecommunication and Information Society Day Conference, playing a key role in increasing the 5G adoption rate in rural areas.
The "driving force" of thousands of industries
"Build well" must "use well". In the past five years of 5G commercialization, the ideal of "5G changing society" has become a reality.
In July 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other ten departments jointly issued the "5G Application "Sailing" Action Plan (2021-2023) (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan"). Since then, China's 5G applications have braved the wind and waves, and have made new breakthroughs in the depth, breadth, and temperature of applications.
A full 5G smart factory located in Hongtang Science and Technology Innovation Park, Jiangbei, Ningbo
A single screen can reflect the effective information on each module in the whole factory; Data statistics and intelligent final settlement automatically generate the required production orders, automatically identify and judge employee behaviors, and deal with production abnormalities in a timely manner...... These scenarios have become commonplace in 5G fully connected factories, and 5G is being carved into the DNA of more and more enterprises' core production.
Industry applications are the highlight of 5G's deep cultivation. Over the past five years, 5G has promoted the deepening of digital and real integration. Data shows that as of the first quarter of this year, 5G applications have been integrated into 74 of the 97 national economic categories. There are more than 94,000 application cases, more than 29,000 5G industry virtual private networks, and more than 10,000 "5G + Industrial Internet" projects, which effectively promote the high-end, intelligent and green development of the industry.
While industry applications continue to deepen, 5G applications are also constantly "expanding", gradually extending to sea areas and frontiers. At present, the mainland has achieved continuous 5G network coverage within 40 kilometers in key areas, along the coast and offshore waters in 10 coastal provinces, including Guangdong, Shandong and Fujian.
"The 5G network can allow an experienced underwater robot operator to quickly serve multiple fishing grounds, improve the efficiency of underwater inspection, and basically meet the transmission of ultra-clear image quality video, and the operation delay can be controlled within 0.1 seconds." Lei Qiqi, a wireless network engineer at the Ningde branch of China Mobile Fujian Company, told reporters. The continuous weaving of 5G networks in the sea area has led to the emergence of new applications such as 5G+ marine ranching, 5G+ offshore drilling platforms, and 5G+ smart ships in the sea area.
For 5G networks, which have more than 870 million mobile phone users, traffic management for ordinary people is still the basic disk.
You can video chat with your family with one click, and all the door magnetic equipment, gas, smoke alarms, etc. at home are networked...... More and more urban elderly people have installed 5G+ smart elderly care systems in their homes, and even if they are at home, the "life housekeeper" can always ensure the life of the elderly.
Students from Dafang County No. 7 Middle School in Bijie City, Guizhou Province, learn ideological and political courses remotely through a 5G network
5G is like a "golden key" to unlock people's happy life, and inclusive services with warmth make people's lives smarter, more convenient, and better. According to the data, from the release of the Action Plan to the end of the first quarter of this year, the 5G user penetration rate has increased from 11% to 60%; The number of 5G mobile phones jumped from 160 million to 874 million, and the average monthly traffic of mobile network users increased from 10GB to 18GB. The Internet connection rate of primary and secondary schools nationwide has reached 100%, telemedicine has covered all poverty-alleviated counties, and 2,577 websites and apps commonly used by the elderly and the disabled have been upgraded for the elderly and barrier-free. Innovative applications including 5G+4K/8K live broadcast, 5G+AR/VR, 5G new calling, and 5G video customer service continue to upgrade the quality of life.
According to the estimation of research institutions, the total economic output directly driven by 5G may reach 1.86 trillion yuan in 2023, an increase of 29% over 2022.
The "Supporting Force" for Continued Development
China's 5G development has entered the second half, and the global communications industry is paying attention to China's future 5G evolution and 6G network deployment.
Recently, China Mobile opened the first 5G-A (5G Advanced) base station in the Mount Everest region, and launched the world's first 5G-A commercial deployment in Hangzhou. This marks the world's highest peak region and officially entered the 5G-A era.
China Mobile opened its first 5G-A base station in the Mount Everest region
As a bridge from 5G to 6G, 5G-A is more than "half a little" better than 5G. 5G-A not only maintains 5G's original high-bandwidth, low-latency, and Internet of Everything capabilities, but also adds uplink ultra-broadband, broadband real-time interaction, and communication-sensing integration capabilities, which is expected to achieve a 10-fold increase in network speed compared to 5G.
According to Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's Rotating Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, 5.5G (5G-A) is the inevitable path for 5G network evolution, which will better match scenarios such as human-to-human, IoT, sensing, and high-end manufacturing, and incubate more new business opportunities.
In the Great Wall Seiko Automation Smart Factory in Baoding, Hebei Province, the 5G-A ultra-high reliability and ultra-low latency flexible production line has been put into commercial use, and 5G-A equipment has entered the core link of automobile manufacturing. It is understood that the equipment series and control of traditional industries rely on wired networks, and the long-term wear and tear of communication cables will lead to production interruptions. With its high reliability and low latency, the 5G-A network fundamentally eliminates the wired constraints of the industrial network, greatly improves the production capacity of flexible production, and brings more benefits to enterprises.
An industrial robot in the 5G-A Industrial Internet Laboratory of Great Wall Seiko Automation Smart Factory
"The development direction of the future factory is logical discretization, centralized scheduling, and flexible network. The entry of 5G-A into the core industrial control link will bring more development opportunities to China's industrial control, thereby bringing new vitality to the development of new industrialization. He Liu, general manager of Shanghai Boao Automation System Co., Ltd., told reporters.
The three major directions of "air-space-ground integration, synaesthesia integration, and intelligent uplink" are the new capabilities of 5G-A. In the future, cutting-edge new applications with high requirements for bandwidth and latency networks, such as the Internet of Vehicles, glasses-free 3D, extended reality, and low-altitude economy, will obtain higher reliability after the introduction of new skills such as synaesthesia integration and passive Internet of Things, and the application effect is expected to be greatly improved.
For 5G-A, the three major telecom operators in mainland China are also fully prepared. China Mobile has put forward an action plan for 5G-A dual-chain integration, and has made positive progress in tackling key technologies such as the integration of intelligence, simplicity, and computing, endogenous determination, and passive IoT. China Telecom has taken the lead in formulating more than 30 3GPP international standards in super frequency fusion, dynamic frame sharing, and mid- and low-band co-construction and sharing, and has not only formed more than 600 patents, but also released ten 5G-A innovation scenarios. China Unicom has also explored innovative technologies based on 5G-A URLLC (ultra-reliable and low latency), and will build the first 5G-A automotive welding flexible trial production line in China in 2022.
Huawei's full range of 5G-A solutions help operators around the world move toward 5G-A in all bands and multiple paths. Chip companies Qualcomm and Nokia Bell completed the 5G-A ultra-high-speed test; Chip manufacturers such as MediaTek and UNISOC have also completed the verification of key technologies in the laboratory of 5G RedCap. Terminal manufacturers have also let 5G-A "settle" new models. The Honor Magic6 series and the OPPO Find X7 series have all supported 5G-A mobile communication, and vivo, Xiaomi and other companies have also successively posted 5G-A speed test photos of their flagship models, indicating that their new mobile phones will support 5G-A network.
As the important links of the whole industry chain continue to mature, 5G-A, with its strong performance, will take over the baton and quickly move towards thousands of industries, continuing to write a new chapter in the high-quality development of China's information and communication industry.
Author丨Qi XuEditor丨Xu Hengmei Editor丨Maria Producer丨Lian Xiaodong