On April 12, according to a notice from China Unicom, a company in a province of China Unicom is conducting a 2G base station frequency reduction and retiring service. It is planned to shut down 101 low-traffic base stations. In fact, similar actions have taken place in other provinces. In order to develop 4G, China Unicom has started to shut down 2G networks in some places since April 1. China Unicom stated that technically speaking, 2G network withdrawal can be realized in a short time.
It is understood that by the end of January this year, China Unicom has already started deploying 2G networks for decommissioning services in several provinces and cities, and requested that the market line strictly prohibit the development of 2G services. According to internal news, currently Unicom's 2G customers account for about 2% of the total number of customers. In 2017, Unicom's subscribers reached 280 million units at the end of the year, and the current number of 2G customers is about 5 million. In other words, once China Unicom 2G fully withdraws 5 million subscribers, it will not be able to make calls.
By the end of 2017, there are still 1.57 million 2G base stations, 290 million 2G users, and massive IoT devices that are more dependent on 2G networks. Therefore, 2G has a long way to go. In the 2G era, regardless of signal coverage, call, and Internet access quality, China Unicom has a huge gap with the same GSM mobile. Under the conditions of perfect WCDMA deployment, it is not difficult to foresee that Unicom's 2G “chicken ribs†network is cleared. .
Last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a document allowing operators to deploy the NB-IoT system on the GSM band. Subsequently, China Mobile has built a 4G-based NB-IoT network on the original 2G band. The 900Mhz and 1800Mhz originally used to deploy 2G networks belong to the premium frequency band and are also urgently needed by operators.
On April 3, 2018, China Mobile issued an FDD license. However, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has not issued a notice to permit China Mobile to re-cultivate 2G frequencies for the construction of 4G networks. For China Mobile, the frequency of 2G backoffs can only be used for the Internet of Things and not for data services. The policy of refarming of the spectrum is not completely relaxed.
China Unicom began to shut down its 2G network and asked the market to forbid the development of 2G services first to appear in mobile technology.
1, China Mobile
Of the three operators, China Mobile has the fastest move.
In June 2017, China Mobile and ZTE Corporation opened the nation's first 5G pre-commercial test base station in Guangzhou. In November of that year, China Mobile jointly announced that Qualcomm and ZTE Corporation had successfully implemented the world's first end-to-end 5G new air interface (5GNR) system interoperability (IoDT) based on the 3GPP R15 standard; the three companies represented operators and systems to provide services And terminal vendors, they constitute a complete 5G interoperability link, which means that China 5G is a milestone in the testing process.
At the release level of the results, in addition to releasing the above-mentioned results of the largest end-to-end interoperability based on the 3GPP standard (9 vendors involved in base stations, terminal chips, and test instruments, etc.), China Mobile also released prototypes and test results of 5G commercial products, and Explicit "end-to-end technical requirements for 5G scale testing".
At the pilot project level, China Mobile announced that it will build the world's largest 5G trial network and formally announced the 5G scale pilot program in 2018. It will conduct field tests in five cities including Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Wuhan. Each city will build more than 100 5G base stations; 5G services and application demonstrations will be conducted in 12 cities including Beijing, Xiong'an, Tianjin, Fuzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Nanchang, Nanning, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Shenyang and Lanzhou.
China Mobile also stated that it will launch the first batch of 5G chips that meet China Mobile's demand before the end of 2018, and release the first batch of 5G pre-commercial terminals in the first half of 2019, including data terminals and smart phones.
2. China Unicom
At the new product launch conference for government and enterprise customers on March 9th, China Unicom launched the seven New Products including cloud networking, cloud networking, and cloud broadband with the theme of “Cloud Network Integration and Smart Futureâ€. Announced schedule for its own 5G plan. China Unicom stated that it will conduct 5G networking trials in 2018, commercial use in 2019, and commercial use in 2020.
This is the most accurate timeline China Unicom has released for 5G so far.
In fact, at the first extraordinary general meeting of China Unicom in early February, Wang Xiaochu, chairman of China Unicom, specifically talked about 5G. He said:
The chip maker's news is that 5G technology will be available in the first quarter of 2019, but it is estimated that the technology will mature about a quarter later, and that 5G service may really be available in the second half of 2019. We actively tracked and did some experiments. The conclusion is that we have to give manufacturers and R&D institutions some time to clarify the technology and business model. International companies and Chinese companies must be much more cautious, and formulate inputs and applications based on business models. The point.
From here, we can see that China Unicom's steps in 5G are much more cautious.
However, in terms of 5G testing, China Unicom also has some moves. In January 2018, China Unicom submitted an application to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and plans to conduct 5G tests in 7 cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Xiong'an. At that time, Ma Hongbing, deputy general manager of China Unicom's network construction department, revealed that it has completed field construction work in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Huawei, ZTE and Nokia's 5G prototype laboratory verification and partial field performance verification have also been completed.
However, compared to China Mobile, China Unicom's pace is still a lot slower. On MWC2018, China Unicom, together with ZTE and Intel, held a press conference to jointly publish the “White Paper on the Architecture and Industrial Ecology of China Unicom's Edge-Cloud Platform†and announced the official launch of the China Unicom Edge-Cloud large-scale pilot.
Xiao Bian believes that although the above actions are considered part of the overall trend of China Unicom in the 5G era, it still focuses on cloud services and is still a bit far away from ordinary users. As for the terminal with the closest commercial relationship with 5G, China Unicom has basically had no movement.
3, China Telecom
Like China Mobile and China Unicom, China Telecom has already conducted pilot projects in some cities.
In August 2017, China Telecom announced the launch of the 5G Innovation Demonstration Network in Xiong County, Xiong'an New District, Hebei Province. It also released the “White Paper for China Telecom 5G Innovation Demonstration Network†and stated that it will take the 5G Innovation Demonstration Network as an opportunity to realize in 2019. 5G commercial trials will realize the commercial scale of key cities in 2020.
In the following months, China Telecom launched 5G pilots in six cities including Xiong'an, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou, Chengdu, Lanzhou, etc., with 6-8 stations in each city, with wireless networking capabilities and solution verification mainly in the 3.5GHz frequency band. . The entire opening process was completed in early December 2017.
In January 2018, at the 5G three-phase test specification launch conference in China, Shen Shaoai, deputy general manager of the China Telecom Technology Department, clearly stated that China Telecom's network construction ideas, namely, the first eMBB (Enhance Mobile Broadband, enhanced mobile broadband), Priority is given to standalone standalone (SA) networking and full-mode full-frequency full-menet communications will be supported.
1,4G investment recovery pressure
Because the three major operators of the 4G network have made large-scale investments, the innovative operators of each generation of communication technologies will take 7-8 years to recover costs. Under the urgent conditions of the 5G network construction, the operator's funds are also under great pressure. The construction of 5G networks still needs to be step by step. From the technical point of view to the full maturity of the industry chain, it will bring a truly different network experience to users.
Although AT&T and Verzion will open 5G for commercial use in the second half of the year, experts are still arguing about the 5G model. Experts believe that this "broadband network mobilization" model is not true 5G, there is no moving scene, and really 5G is "mobile broadband." Regardless of whether this 5G is true or not, the official commercial news came out and the operators in various countries could not stand it.
2, the pressure of the license
The buzzwords on the Internet have always spread the fastest, and there is a news that “the domestic 5G licenses are advanced by one yearâ€. According to the news, the 5G license will be issued in advance in December 2018 or January 2019, and the 5G spectrum allocation will be determined in mid-2018. China's 5G construction is simply "accelerated."
Although the construction of the 5G network is in turmoil, operators are under tremendous pressure. China Mobile will build a pilot network in 5 cities in the first quarter of 2018; China Unicom will submit applications for 5G trials in 7 cities to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; China Telecom will implement pre-commercial deployment of 5G networks in 2019.
3, base station pressure
However, the technology and application of 5G networks are much more complicated than those of 3G and 4G networks. The examination and research for manufacturers and operators is more severe. China Mobile said that 5G base stations for commercial deployment will reach 10,000 by 2020, but this is far from enough to cover 5G coverage. 5G operates at a higher frequency band, has a smaller coverage area, and has many application scenarios. The demand for base stations is exponentially increased. The three major operators are under great pressure from base station construction.
4, frequency band pressure
According to the planning of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the third phase of the 4G technology R&D pilot has been launched in advance in November 2017, and a large-scale experimental network has been established in 2018. The 5G network construction will be initiated in 2019 and will be officially commercialized as soon as 2020. The lifeblood of 5G lies in the issuance of licenses, that is, frequency allocation to the three major operators. Last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology publicly solicited plans for high-frequency band planning and use of opinions. The opinions of all countries in the world did not agree and became the reason for the delay in issuing licenses.
At present, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has already decided to deploy 5G in the frequency bands of 3.4-3.6GHz, 4.8-5GHz, 24.75-27.5GHz, and 37-42.5GHz, and the planning of the millimeter-wave band, that is, the high-frequency band, is not yet clear. The 5G mid-range band is likely to be first commercialized. In the United States, as early as 2016, the division of 5G high-frequency bands has been determined, which is why the US operators can use commercial 5G networks in the second half of this year.
5, demand pressure
New application scenarios such as Internet of Things, driverless, and VR are all suitable for 5G networks. The news compiled on the Internet that "The domestic 5G will be ahead of schedule" also proves the eager expectation of 5G businesses in all walks of life.
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