The development of 4G proves that there is no need to wait for 5G to mature before commercial deployment

It is too early for China Mobile to advance its 5G trial commercialization plan to 2018. 5G may not be mature by then, so it is too radical. However, from the commercialization of 4G, we can see that technology and standards are gradually improved in actual use. Therefore, it is not a problem for China to deploy 5G as soon as possible.

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LTE was first proposed in 2003. In 2004, China and Europe agreed to jointly develop the LTE standard. In 2009, the first version of the 4G standard was formulated. In 2010, Verizon built the first LTE network in the United States. However, its development was quite slow. By the end of 2011, its number of users was only 4.4 million, accounting for about 5% of the total number of users. By 2012, the download speed was about 13Mbps and the upload speed was 2.5Mbps.

This is far from the 1Gbps download speed planned for 4G at the time, and is even slower than the HSPA+ at the time. In 2011, Ericsson cooperated with T-Mobil, another US operator, to develop HSPA+ with a theoretical speed of 42Mbps. However, due to factors such as better LTE latency and higher spectrum efficiency, in 2011, another US operator AT&T chose to build its own LTE network to cope with the competition from Verizon. At that time, AT&T also believed that it could rely on HSPA+ to cope with the competition from LTE. At this point, it can be considered that LTE has gained an advantage.

Until today, 4G technology has been unable to reach its original design speed of 1Gbps, but 4G is now being promoted in full swing around the world. As 4G technology continues to evolve with the deployment of various technologies accumulated in reality, its wireless download speed has been continuously improved. This shows that the commercial use of 5G technology does not need to wait for it to mature before being deployed commercially.

Although the current 5G standard has not yet been finalized, many related technologies have begun to be introduced. The multi-antenna technology used in the 4G+ technology that China Mobile is promoting can be used in 5G. In fact, the evolution of technology does not completely subvert the previous technology, but evolves gradually. After all, the introduction of each innovative technology must be gradually verified in actual use. For this reason, Ericsson, the leader of the European 5G standard, proposed that the 5G standard is based on the evolution of 4G technology rather than a revolution.

Under such circumstances, it is not a problem for China Mobile to promote the commercial use of 5G in advance. It can introduce some 5G technologies to enhance the competitive advantage of its mobile network. In fact, the 4G+ technologies it is currently actively developing, such as multi-antenna technology, can be applied to the 5G standard. The introduction of some 5G technologies can effectively improve its wireless network download speed and shorten the gap with the LTE-FDD download speed of China Unicom and China Telecom.

All three domestic operators have obtained TD-LTE licenses, but only China Mobile operates TD-LTE technology independently, while China Unicom and China Telecom have obtained LTE-FDD licenses at the same time. From the current situation, the latter two operators will focus more on LTE-FDD, and China Telecom will recently use its 800MHz prime frequency band originally used for CDMA for LTE-FDD network construction, which will help it quickly shorten the network coverage gap with China Mobile, or even surpass it.

There is no doubt that 5G technology can provide higher wireless download speeds, better latency and other advantages, which will improve China Mobile's technological gap with China Unicom and China Telecom due to the existing 4G time-division technology. Especially in cities, due to the dense population and China Mobile has nearly 60% of domestic users, the network speed has decreased, and it is difficult to continue to increase base stations. The introduction of 5G technology can enhance China Mobile's competitiveness and resist the 4G competitive advantage of its opponents.

Of course, if China needs to support its own communications industry, it should also be careful that China Mobile will secretly return to European standards and be marginalized in the 5G standards. Ericsson currently has an advantage in LTE-FDD in the 4G standard. There is no doubt that it also hopes to continue to evolve along the LTE-FDD standard to 5G to enhance its patent voice. However, compared with Qualcomm's strength in the 3G era, Ericsson is obviously more willing to cooperate with other companies. It currently does not have its own chip business, so it is possible to cooperate with Qualcomm. Qualcomm was marginalized in the formulation of 4G standards and also recognized the importance of cooperation. Considering that there is competition between Chinese and European and American companies, the possibility of cooperation between Europe and the United States in the 5G era is higher than that between China and the United States or China and Europe.

A current trend in China is to promote the unification of 5G technology. In fact, this is to adopt the European 5G standard. Whether it is 2G, 3G, or 4G, there is a dispute over time division and frequency division technology. Europe has established the evolution to 5G based on LTE-FDD, which means that Europe will adopt the frequency division 5G standard. If the global 5G standard is unified, it means that China will abandon its own time division standard, which is not good for China. After all, China’s current accumulated patents are mainly in time division technology.