After three whole years, what changes has 5G brought us?

On June 6, 2019, my country officially issued 5G commercial licenses; at the end of October of the same year, the three major telecommunications operators announced the full commercialization of the market. It will be three years from June 6, 2022. What changes have these three years of 5G brought to us?

First of all, from the perspective of network construction, my country has built more than 1.6 million 5G base stations, accounting for more than 60% of the total number of 5G base stations in the world. By the end of this year, with the completion of China Mobile's 700M 5G network, my country will have a 5G network that can cover the entire country. And according to the plans of the four major telecommunications operators, the total number of base stations will exceed 2 million by the end of the year.

From the perspective of user scale, as of the end of April, my country's 5G users have reached 413 million, accounting for about a quarter of the country's mobile phone users; if calculated by the number of operators' 5G package users, it has reached 870 million, more than half of the total number of mobile phone users. This number occupies an absolute position even in the world. For example, there are data at the end of 2021: the number of global 5G users at the end of 2021 is about 700 million. As for 5G terminals, now there are a hundred flowers blooming, and users are the only choice for purchasing 5G. Relevant data show that as of the end of March 2022, there were 761 products that have obtained 5G terminal access licenses.

From the perspective of 5G applications, there is no obvious killer service at the consumer level. The current user experience is simply "fast", unlike the rapid development of SMS in 2G, multimedia in 3G, and mobile Internet in 4G, which has brought about a comprehensive improvement in industry and experience and triggered a huge change in the industry. However, from the perspective of industry applications, the current commercial use is gradually reaching its peak: it is reported that my country has deployed more than 5,325 industry virtual private networks, covering 40 of the 97 major categories of the national economy. For example, China Telecom's coal industry 5G application and China Mobile's mobile audio and video 5G application are already at the leading level in the industry.

Although our country's 5G development is ahead of the global average, it still has not met early expectations - whether for industry or individuals, compared to 4G, it is only a simple speed increase, and it is still insufficient in the development and cultivation of specific application environments. This is also the main reason why many people currently do not plan to replace their 5G mobile phones, and under the influence of the general environment, the domestic 5G mobile phone market's year-on-year shipments have dropped sharply this year.

Finally, let me ask you a question: What do you think is the biggest change after using 5G? Has it met your expectations?