From 4G to 5G, my country's mobile communication highway is getting wider and wider

Since the advent of mobile communications, humans have been equipped with "clairvoyance" and "super hearing". With 1G, people can communicate while walking, 2G has achieved mobile communication coverage, 3G has led people into the broadband era, 4G has made the broadband experience smoother, and 5G is waving at people, with a peak rate of more than 10G. Downloads that now take 100 seconds to complete will only take 1 second in the future.

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"The broadband mobile communications project has fully supported the development of mobile communications in my country." Wen Ku, head of the broadband mobile communications project implementation management office and director of the Information and Communications Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that step by step, my country has achieved a leap from "following 2G", "breaking through 3G" to "synchronizing with 4G", not only significantly enhancing the industry's R&D capabilities and forming a complete industrial chain, but also becoming a setter of international standards. Today, my country has built the world's largest 4G network, with a total of 2.498 million 4G base stations and 734 million 4G users, and 5G research and development has also been fully launched.

From technological gap to full industry chain development

In China today, people can easily perform most functions of work and life with a mobile phone anytime and anywhere: ordering food, shopping, sending documents, checking information... The construction of mobile communication infrastructure has been very developed, opening up an interconnected "highway" for people, and 80% of Internet users travel on this highway every day through their mobile phones.

It is hard to imagine that 10 years ago, my country's 3G licenses had not even been issued. According to Wu Hequan, chief technical engineer of the major project "New Generation Broadband Wireless Mobile Communication Network" and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, when the first generation of mobile communications emerged, my country was blank. When the second generation of mobile communications GSM came, we gradually followed. When the third generation of mobile communications came, it was already difficult to follow the trend at that time, but we set a "small goal" for ourselves: by 2020, China will be at the forefront of the world in mobile communication standards, technologies, industries, and applications.

In 2008, my country's major project of building a new generation of broadband wireless mobile communication network was officially launched. "At that time, there were no instruments or software, and the conditions were very difficult. But it was this lack of resources that gave us an opportunity to build a brand new industrial chain," said Wu Hequan.

They take the operators as the leader, use the applications to drive the system, and use the system to drive the equipment. The operators' networks are used to test whether the system equipment developed by the equipment suppliers meets the requirements, the equipment suppliers' requirements are used to test whether the terminals of the terminal providers can meet the requirements, the terminals are used to test the chips, and the networks are used to test the instruments. At the same time, the weak links such as software and antennas are driven. The upstream and downstream of the entire industrial chain are connected in series. From the very beginning, China's mobile communications have embarked on a path of combining "government, industry, academia, research, and application". Universities, enterprises, scientific research institutes, etc. have jointly promoted the implementation of the special project, and the implementation process has also become a "large-scale operation."

In the nine years since the launch of the project, we have closely followed the international situation, actively integrated into the global innovation network, and fully supported the development of my country's mobile communications, achieving the leap from "2G follow-up", "3G breakthrough" to "4G synchronization". China's mobile communications industry innovation capabilities and industrial strength have been significantly improved.

Wen Ku said that the research and development capabilities of my country's mobile communications industry have been significantly enhanced. It supports the formation of a complete industrial chain of 4G systems, terminals, chips, instruments, etc. System manufacturers are in a dominant position in the global 4G field, and terminal chip companies have made breakthroughs in 5-mode 10-frequency and 28nm chip technology. At the same time, 4G has achieved industrialization and global-scale commercial use.

As of November 2016, China's 4G users reached 734 million, accounting for more than 50% of mobile phones, reaching 55.7%; my country has built the world's largest 4G network, with a total of 4G base stations reaching 2.498 million.

From being controlled by others to setting standards

In the 2G and 3G era, my country's mobile communications were still in a follower position. Although its industrial capabilities in products were good, it was often restricted by others in terms of patents.

The advent of the 4G era has drawn a new starting line for all countries. my country needs to seize the opportunity, not only to occupy the market in products and industries, but also to get rid of the situation of being controlled by others in patents. "We hope to have breakthroughs in core technologies and have our say in patent standards," said Wu Hequan.

To this end, major projects actively sought breakthroughs in mobile communication technology. Engineers tried to reduce the cost of mobile communications as much as possible and to create cheap and easy-to-use terminals. However, they encountered thorny problems during the implementation process. "Standards" became the bottleneck restricting China's mobile communication technology.

"In some developed countries, the standards for mobile communications are relatively simple. In the 4G field, Europe uses the LTE-FDD standard, in 3G it is WCDMA, and in 2G it is the GSM standard. The United States also has a relatively simple standard. China is different. We use more mobile communication standards, and the mobile communication system must support several standards at the same time." Wu Hequan said, "Now our 4G mobile phones can support 2G and 3G, and 2G has the GSM standard and CDMA standard, 3G has the TD standard and WCDMA standard, and 4G has the TD-LTE standard and FDD-LTE standard. Not only are there many standards, but there are also many frequencies, so China's mobile phone terminals are the most complex in the world."

In this case, how to achieve multi-frequency and multi-mode, which is both cheap and easy to use, is indeed a challenge. To solve this problem, a lot of technical support is needed, including frequency division multiplexing technology, intelligent multi-antenna technology, broadband technology, etc. "In this regard, we have not only overcome the technical difficulties of multi-frequency and multi-mode, but also met the needs of users for long standby, low power consumption and good application." Wu Hequan said.

Therefore, the small mobile terminals that are now sold on the market for only a few hundred yuan are actually high-tech integrated devices. In addition, along with the upgrading of products, the development of special projects in the field of mobile communications in my country has never stopped. According to Wu Hequan, it is impossible for enterprises supported by special projects to slow down the pace of updates after developing a terminal. For example, Apple has a new version almost every year, and other smart terminal companies may launch a new version in half a year or even less. Therefore, special project work is a process of continuous progress and innovation.

Today, my country's participation in international standards in the field of mobile communications has significantly increased. "TD-LTE-Advanced, which was formulated under the leadership of my country, has become one of the 4G international standards. Not only that, we have also made some derivatives based on this. For example, traditional walkie-talkies can only be used to talk by pressing and holding, and you can talk and he can talk. Now, the multimedia walkie-talkies based on 4G, the standard is called B-Trunc, which can not only talk but also read, and this standard has also become an international standard." Wen Ku said.

From 4G to 5G

With the development of 4G, my country is catching up with developed countries. At the same time, China Mobile Communications is "marching" towards 5G! 5G requires not only wider bandwidth and higher speed, but also low latency, high reliability, low power consumption and large connections in applications.

"Now the speed of high-speed rail is only 300 kilometers per hour, and poor signals often occur. The speed of high-speed rail can be increased to 500 kilometers. At this time, how to ensure smooth communication is the problem to be solved in the 5G era." Wu Hequan said.

If we only regard 5G as a high-end version of 4G, we will underestimate it. The future development of 5G may open up a completely different life for people.

"The new generation of mobile communications can realize the Internet of Vehicles. In the future, the use of 5G will help people avoid traffic accidents on highways, because mobile communications can respond quickly, so that the communication delay between vehicles and between vehicles and roads can reach one millisecond, which is 90% lower than 4G. With such an experience, fashionable VR and AR will have a lot to do. For example, through virtual reality simulation of equipment to be developed, VR training of workers to master maintenance methods, etc. AR and VR will not only be game platforms, but will also become industrial applications." Wu Hequan said.

Based on the great prospects of 5G, my country started the research and development of 5G ahead of the rest of the world. In 2013, it took the lead in launching the IMT-2020 promotion group for 5G. After that, it organized various aspects of industry, academia, research and application to take the lead in proposing the concept and technical route of 5G, completed the vision and demand research of 5G, and released white papers such as 5G wireless and network technology architecture. It also started the 5G technology research and development test, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also clearly designated 3.5GHz as the 5G test frequency to accelerate the coordinated development of technology, standards, research and development, and business applications.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the broadband mobile communications project will continue to focus on the overall goal and the research and development of 5G and LTE enhanced technologies. In terms of 5G, the focus will be on promoting the formation of a global unified 5G standard, basically completing the research and development of 5G chips, terminals, and system equipment, and promoting the integrated innovative development of 5G-supported mobile Internet and Internet of Things applications, laying an industrial foundation for the launch of 5G commercial use in 2020. In terms of LTE enhanced technology, the focus will be on supporting the research and development of weak links in the industrial chain such as LTE enhanced key technologies and terminal chips.

"Mobile communications are global, and our country has all the standards. The most difficult thing is our terminals. China's terminals are now the best in the world, with 6 modes and 12 frequencies. The dream of people in mobile communications is to have a unified standard, so that we can reduce the overall cost, truly share the scale benefits of the industry, and jointly promote the prosperity and development of global 5G. We also welcome domestic and foreign companies to participate in our research and development." Wen Ku said.

In general, broadband mobile communications are in a period of rapid development and change. my country faces both opportunities and challenges in the field of broadband mobile communications, but we will further increase our efforts, overcome difficulties, accelerate breakthroughs in core technologies, give play to the strategic support role of scientific and technological innovation for industrial development, and work hard to achieve the overall goal of 2020.