The current status of 5G and new initiatives of the three major telecommunications operators

After entering 2021, the movement of 5G construction in our country feels that the atmosphere is not as enthusiastic as in the previous two years. Of course, this is not an illusion, which can also be seen from the operating data of the three major communication operators in the first half of 2021. For example, in terms of investment amount, in the first half of this year, China Mobile completed an investment of 86 billion yuan, which was less than 15% less than the same period last year; China Telecom completed 31% of the planned investment, and the investment amount was equivalent to 63% of the same period last year; China Unicom completed 20.4% of the planned investment for the whole year. However, if you think that the progress of 5G construction has begun to slow down, you must be wrong. In fact, the three major communication operators have not changed their 5G investment plans for 2021, and it is likely that they will be fully accelerated in the remaining less than four months.

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Let's first look at the current status of 5G: As of the end of June this year, China Mobile has opened 501,000 5G base stations, with a full-year target of more than 700,000; China Telecom and China Unicom have jointly built and shared 460,000 5G base stations in use, with a full-year target of 700,000. The current 5G coverage covers all cities above the prefecture level in the country, and the number of 5G mobile phone terminals connected has reached 365 million, accounting for more than 80% of the world.

The 5G planning progress in 2021 is: orderly promote the construction and application of 5G networks, accelerate 5G coverage in major cities, promote co-construction and sharing, and build more than 600,000 new 5G base stations. However, in the first half of this year, the three major communication operators built less than 200,000 new 5G base stations in total, so the remaining time is to build more than 400,000. The confirmed news obtained from China Radio and Television a few days ago is that the first bidding amount for 700M 5G base stations is 480,000, and 200,000 will be invested in this year. This amount is exactly the number of 5G base stations built by China Mobile according to the annual plan minus the number of 5G base stations that have been built. Since the construction of 5G, China Mobile has basically kept pace with the 5G construction progress of China Telecom and China Unicom. The remaining 200,000 base stations are basically the co-construction and sharing 5G base stations that China Telecom and China Unicom are going to do. For the remaining 4 months, the focus of China Mobile + China Radio and Television is on the 700MHz frequency band, and the focus of China Telecom + China Unicom is on the 2.1GHz frequency band. They will all start comprehensive construction.

In terms of the scale of 5G users, the data confirmed by the three major communication operators are: China Mobile's 5G package users are 251 million, with a penetration rate of 26.5%; China Telecom's 5G package users are 131.15 million, with a penetration rate of 36.2%; China Unicom's 5G package users are 113 million, with a penetration rate of 37%. In other words, individual 5G users account for about one-third of the total, which means that there is still a lot of room for 5G commercial use.

In terms of specific 5G commercial initiatives, the three major telecom operators have different focuses. China Mobile focuses on 5G applications in multiple fields such as industrial Internet, transportation, medical care, and education; China Unicom focuses on key areas such as industrial Internet, smart mines, smart medical care, and smart cities to support more than 15 5G industry applications; China Telecom has a series of 5G application benchmark projects in smart factories, mines, ports, power grids, cities, etc., which are quickly replicated in many places across the country.

In addition, the specific tactics of the three major telecom operators are also different. China Mobile focuses on the reserve of 5G technology patents and currently owns more than 3,300 5G patents. In terms of quantity, it ranks first among global operators; China Telecom is comprehensively building a "three-gigabit" high-quality pan-connectivity service of 5G+optical broadband+WiFi6; China Unicom is focusing on the differentiated competitive advantages of 5G+ABCDE (artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, edge computing) integrated innovation.

In summary, the slowdown in 5G construction is an inevitable result of industrial development. The current key goal is to accelerate the implementation of 5G innovative applications and cultivate 5G commercial cases, while also waiting for the global 5G standards to mature further.