5G small base stations are expected to usher in great development to help 5G empower thousands of industries

As my country's 5G outdoor continuous coverage is basically completed, operators will also shift more of their attention to the coverage and construction of segmented scenarios, and 5G construction will enter the "deep water zone". Against this background, 5G small base station construction is expected to usher in great development.

5G small base stations will usher in "spring"

The so-called 5G small base stations refer to micro base stations, pico base stations and flying base stations, which are small in size and flexible in deployment. They are often deployed in indoor or crowded areas such as airports, railway stations, stadiums and corporate scenarios. At present, all prefecture-level cities, more than 97% of county towns and 40% of townships and towns in the country have achieved 5G network coverage. The future 5G infrastructure will enter the "deep water zone", and the focus will be on "filling gaps" in county towns and increasing 5G network coverage in townships and towns. This will also bring huge construction opportunities for 5G small base stations.

In fact, major operators have already taken active action. Since 2021, the three major operators have been actively preparing for the centralized procurement of 5G small base stations. "From the perspective of the construction cycle, it is generally necessary to wait until the macro base station coverage is basically completed before the centralized procurement of small base stations will begin." Industry insiders told the media, and this transition will take place in the next two years.

On January 10, 2022, China Telecom released the "2022 5G Extended Small Base Station Equipment Technical Test Announcement" on its official website, deciding to launch the 2022 China Telecom 5G Extended Small Base Station Equipment Technical Test. The test results will be used in China Telecom's 2022 5G Extended Small Base Station Product Centralized Procurement. I believe this is just the beginning of 5G small base station centralized procurement, and more operators will follow up in the future.

"Exploiting opportunities wherever they arise" and adapting to local conditions

Big has its advantages, small has its characteristics. The construction idea of ​​5G base stations in my country is "macro base stations first, small base stations later, outdoor first, indoor later." The "Indoor 5G Scenario White Paper" jointly launched by GSA and Huawei points out that starting from 2020, with the acceleration of operators' indoor and outdoor base station construction, more than 80% of 5G traffic will occur indoors in the future. Therefore, due to the surge in refined indoor demand, 5G small base stations are naturally pushed to the forefront.

From the perspective of investment, since the 5G frequency band is higher than that of 4G, the coverage radius of 5G base stations is greatly reduced compared with that of 4G base stations. More base stations are needed for the same area, which will inevitably lead to an increase in construction costs. In order to reduce the cost pressure of network construction as much as possible, in addition to relying on macro base stations, 5G small base stations are also a good choice for 5G construction. From the perspective of network deployment, 5G small base stations are flexible to deploy, can operate independently, and can even be independently networked and operated. They can meet the indoor deep coverage and can also cooperate with Wi-Fi access. They are widely used in most indoor scenarios, such as corporate workshops, shopping malls, hotels, schools, institutions and other public service places. This also makes 5G small base stations have a wealth of application scenarios. Market research company DellOro predicts that the global small base station market will reach US$25 billion in the next five years.

Helping 5G empower all industries

5G can empower thousands of industries, but the conditions for network deployment in some industries are very harsh and need to be deployed in a more compact space environment. This is where 5G small base stations can show their prowess. In actual applications, in addition to solving network coverage problems, 5G small base stations can also meet the needs of vertical industry users for refined network construction, intelligent operations, location services, customer service, etc., especially in businesses dominated by industrial Internet scenarios. Therefore, it has become possible for small base stations to help 5G empower thousands of industries.

5G small base stations can play a key role in enterprise workshops, office buildings, hotels, public transportation facilities, commercial outlets and other scenarios. Through virtualization and cloudification, 5G small base stations can further realize the integration of edge computing and support for intelligent operation and maintenance, which will better meet the needs of 5G dedicated networks and realize the application of related vertical industries such as machine vision, high-precision positioning, VR/AR, Internet of Vehicles, and data not leaving the park. It has huge application potential in 5G+ smart factories, flexible production and manufacturing, intelligent logistics distribution, remote design collaboration and other fields.