With the momentum of the rise in the 4G era, TDD technology is once again joining the global 5G competition

5G enables new opportunities and can create new businesses, new industries and new markets. In the 5G era, TDD technology has broad prospects for development and will play a more important role, making efficient use of spectrum resources.

4G changes life, 5G changes society. 5G enables new opportunities and can create new businesses, new industries and new markets. In the 5G era, TDD will play a more important role because TDD technology has many advantages. Moreover, the global TDD spectrum resources are abundant in the 5G era. In the frequency band below 6GHz, the TDD spectrum that is expected to be issued globally before 2020 will reach 1540MHz; in the frequency band above 6GHz, the future TDD candidate spectrum may reach 33.25GHz.

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China Mobile's cumulative 4G investment reaches 286.2 billion yuan

The evolution of mobile communications has continuously promoted the rapid development of social informatization. In the 4G era, various APP applications, online video viewing, high-speed downloading and uploading have developed rapidly, making mobile Internet access popular, and mobile Internet users account for 90% of the total number of Internet users.

The 5G era will see the diversification of terminals, enhanced mobile broadband capabilities, large-connection IoT capabilities, high-reliability and low-latency communication capabilities, and interconnection between people, people and things, and things and things, achieving full connectivity.

In this context, China Mobile plans to build a "big connection" era of mobile intelligent connection and interconnection of all things. According to reports, 4G has become the core foundation for the prosperity of mobile Internet. China Mobile has invested 286.2 billion yuan in 4G. According to *** data, China Mobile has built more than 1.44 million 4G base stations, developed more than 500 million 4G users, and the 4G network covers 1.2 billion people.

4G has changed not only the individual market, but also the industry market, the family market, and the government and enterprise market. Moreover, the rapid development of 4G has stimulated a surge in mobile data consumption. The explosive growth of data traffic has driven the continuous improvement of mobile broadband capabilities.

According to China Mobile's data forecast, the average monthly traffic per user will exceed 15GB in 2019. LTE needs to introduce a layered networking structure of GSM1800 band + part of A band + part of GSM900 band + hotspot areas to achieve a carrying capacity of 16.55GB/user/month. This poses a great challenge to the spectrum bandwidth demand.

In addition, it is expected that my country's mobile data traffic will increase 600 times from 2010 to 2020, and more than 40,000 times from 2010 to 2030. The growth of new services has put forward higher requirements for network capabilities. For example, the user experience rate of high-definition video services is constantly increasing and will reach Gbit/s. 4G+ can provide better user experience and lower costs.

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5G's superior capabilities will change society

5G technology has remarkable capabilities, such as supporting network speeds exceeding 10Gbit/s, air interface latency below 1ms, and millions of connections per square kilometer.

"5G will take into account the development of both the Internet and the Internet of Things," Liu Guangyi, chief engineer of the Wireless Institute of China Mobile Research Institute, said recently.

The first is the services in the "mobile Internet-continuous wide area coverage" scenario. For example, the continuous experience of services such as video, virtual reality, and augmented reality in wide area coverage/high-speed rail/expressway scenarios. The challenge this brings to the network is to meet the experience rate of 100Mbit/s for each user.

The second is the business of "mobile Internet-hotspot high capacity" scenario, such as FTP download, ultra-high-definition 3D video, virtual reality, augmented reality, etc., which are realized in hotspots and indoor scenarios.

The third is the business of "Internet of Things - low power consumption and large connection" scenarios, such as environmental monitoring, smart cities and sensors. The challenges it faces include a significant increase in connection density and low power consumption and low-cost deployment.

The fourth is the "Internet of Things - low latency and high reliability" scenario business, such as autonomous driving, smart grid and industrial control. The challenges it faces include air interface latency below 1ms, end-to-end latency below ms, and reliability close to 100%.

Japan maintains its advantages in the 4G era and helps to enhance its industrial advantages in areas such as robotics/AR/VR; Japan plans to deploy a 4.5GHz 5G commercial system before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to provide hotspot coverage and support the Tokyo Olympics; NTT docomo is organizing more than 10 mainstream companies to conduct 5G trials.

South Korea is upgrading its network infrastructure through 5G to boost its "innovation economy"; South Korea will conduct 5G pre-commercial trials in early 2018 to support the PyeongChang Winter Olympics; KT announced that it will provide the world's first commercial 5G mobile network in 2019, one year ahead of the original plan of 2020.

The EU is striving to re-establish its leading position in the communications industry and boost the "digital economy" by clearly defining 700MHz/3.4~3.8GHz as the first-release frequency for 5G. Relying on the 5GPPP project, prototype trials began in 2017, 5G pre-commercial trials were launched in 2018, and commercial deployment is expected to be achieved around 2020.

The overall plan for China's 5G technology R&D and testing will be implemented in three steps: in the key technology verification stage (~ September 2016), function and performance tests of single-point key technology test prototypes will be carried out; in the technical solution verification stage (June 2016~September 2017), single base station performance tests will be carried out based on unified frequencies and unified specifications for the technical solutions of different manufacturers, and function, performance and process tests of wireless access network and core network enhancement technologies will be carried out; in the system verification stage (June 2017~October 2018), networking technology function and performance tests of 5G systems will be carried out.

5G enables new opportunities and can create new businesses, new industries and new markets. In order to collaborate across industries and create a new 5G ecosystem, China Mobile has established a 5G Joint Innovation Center to work with all parties to innovate in communications infrastructure, Internet services and vertical industries. In the future, the 5G Joint Innovation Center will develop 5G innovative applications from a market perspective and promote the maturity of the 5G industry from an industry perspective.

Currently, 5G is entering a critical stage of standard development. 3GPP is conducting technical solution research on enhanced mobile broadband and low latency and high reliability scenarios; completed 5G wireless access demand research in September 2016; completed 5G new network architecture research in December 2016, and plans to complete the standardization of independent networking 5G new air interface and core network in June 2018 to support two major scenarios: eMBB and URLLC.

In terms of 5G candidate spectrum, it is estimated that by 2020, my country will have a spectrum gap of 1GHz, and 5G spectrum needs to be considered in advance. Recently, the industry has called on my country to release the 3300~3600MHz frequency band as soon as possible, and gradually build a 5G low-frequency band resource pool with C-band as the core; in the long term, strive for more high-frequency bands.

It is reported that China Mobile has joined hands with industry partners to build a 5G high-frequency band joint measurement platform, which performs multi-platform calibration and parallel measurement to explore high-frequency 3D channel characteristics.

TDD can play a more important role

4G is divided into two standards: TDD and FDD. In the 5G era, TDD technology has broad development prospects and will play a more important role, making efficient use of spectrum resources.

The specific advantages of TDD include: first, the flexible allocation of uplink and downlink time slots can better meet the growing demand for data services; second, the reciprocity of uplink and downlink channels is more suitable for smart antennas and large-scale antenna technologies; third, the asymmetry of spectrum resource requirements and efficient use of scattered spectrum resources; fourth, it is easier to obtain continuous large bandwidth, 2.3GHz full TDD, 2.6GHz full TDD, and the large bandwidth of full TDD brings high speed and large capacity.

Moreover, in the 5G era, the global TDD spectrum resources are abundant. In the frequency band below 6GHz, the TDD spectrum that is expected to be released globally before 2020 will reach 1540MHz; in the frequency band above 6GHz, the future TDD candidate spectrum may reach 33.25GHz.

At present, China Mobile has carried out in-depth research on 5G technology. Liu Guangyi said that in the 5G era, the wireless network and the core network are decoupled, and the 5G network architecture consists of a flexible access cloud, an efficient processing cloud, an intelligent control cloud, and an open capability layer.

5G network slicing can provide on-demand and flexible service deployment. Different deployment scenarios have different requirements for network capabilities, and traditional large-scale unified network deployment is difficult to meet the needs of different scenarios. Network slicing can provide end-to-end logical isolation networks for different application scenarios, such as eMBB, IoT, and V2X.

China Mobile believes that in the 5G era, a user-centric 5G network should be constructed to achieve network autonomy and self-optimization, intelligent perception and collaboration, unified access and seamless mobility, business sinking and local data processing, and flexible functional dynamic topology.

Global 5G competition intensifies

The United States, Japan, South Korea, Europe and other countries and regions are striving to develop 5G, and global competition is intensifying. Liu Guangyi introduced that the United States has taken the lead in the deployment of 5G high-frequency bands, helping it to maintain its leading position in the innovation and development of the Internet. Verizon took the lead in releasing the 5G high-frequency wireless standard, which will be used for fixed access in the early stage and plans to start commercial deployment in 2017; the FCC has designated about 11GHz of high-frequency spectrum above 28GHz; the Obama administration announced that it will invest $400 million to support 5G wireless technology research and development and network testing.