5G spectrum issues remain prominent: experts suggest strengthening collaborative research on high and low spectrum

December 28th morning news (Yue Ming) At the "2016 China Communications Industry Conference and the 11th China Communications Technology Annual Conference" held yesterday, Ma Hongbing, deputy general manager of China Unicom's Network Construction Department, pointed out in his speech that in the 5G era, the spectrum problem has not been completely solved. How to achieve the coordination of high and low frequencies is an issue that the industry chain needs to focus on and solve.

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Ma Hongbing believes that the deployment of 5G networks does not mean the complete withdrawal of traditional 2G/3G/4G networks. The coordination between new and old air interfaces has become more urgent. How to make full use of low-frequency resources such as 900M/1.8G/2.1G/2.3G/2.6G and achieve effective sharing of low-frequency and high-frequency resources requires serious consideration. "This requires the government, operators, and equipment manufacturers to carry out deeper discussions and tests together."

Although my country is conducting experiments at 3.5GHz, the available spectrum resources in this frequency band are only 200MHz, and 5G requires more spectrum resources, so high frequencies above 6GHz must be paid attention to. Ma Hongbing believes that high frequencies are far inferior to low frequencies such as 900MHz in terms of coverage capability, and are very uneconomical from the perspective of coverage cost, so the introduction of high frequencies will be gradual, and effective coordination between 4G and 5G networks needs to be strengthened.