5G is the new infrastructure, but it also faces practical problems

Labs Guide

When we browse Moments and watch videos every day, have we encountered the problem of "clicking"? When it comes to this flying speed, it is inseparable from our 5G new infrastructure. Infrastructure is the cornerstone of economic and social development, and it plays a strategic, basic and leading role. As a new infrastructure in the information age, 5G not only affects our daily Internet experience, but also plays a key underlying supporting role in the development and take-off of the Internet of Things, Industrial Internet, Artificial Intelligence and other fields. 5G looks beautiful, but it also faces challenges in the process of actual application. What are the specific challenges? Welcome to take a look.

[[418638]]

What is "new infrastructure"? This concept was first proposed at the Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of 2018. "New infrastructure" did not appear because of the "epidemic", but because the "epidemic" made "new infrastructure" hotter. On April 20, 2020, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on the economic operation of central enterprises in the first quarter of 2020. Peng Huagang, Secretary-General and Spokesperson of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, clarified the scope of "new infrastructure" on behalf of the country for the first time, including three major directions: digital information infrastructure, integrated infrastructure, and innovative infrastructure. Specifically, it covers the seven major sectors pointed out by CCTV reports that are more popular in the capital market and the "New Infrastructure Development White Paper" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) think tank, including 5G base stations, ultra-high voltage, intercity high-speed railways and intercity rail transit, new energy vehicle charging piles, big data centers, artificial intelligence, and industrial Internet. Different from the new infrastructure construction of traditional infrastructure, "new infrastructure" is characterized by informatization, intelligence, and digitalization. It builds digital infrastructure for the future, takes science and technology as the core, and revolves around the "new hard core of the economy", focusing on laying the foundation for the upcoming era of the Internet of Things.

Due to the wide range of new infrastructure construction and huge investment space, the current domestic economy is mainly driven by domestic consumption and technology. Compared with the "old infrastructure", it has stronger positive externalities and is more in line with the development direction of "structural adjustment". Especially when the economic downturn is expected to be obvious, infrastructure investment is often a weapon to drive economic growth. In the short term, it will help promote GDP, stabilize growth and employment; in the long term, it will help China's economic growth potential and enhance competitiveness. Moderately advanced infrastructure will help release the strong competitiveness of China's economy. Wu Yaping, a researcher at the China Institute of Macroeconomics, judged that this year's new infrastructure investment may be around 1 trillion yuan. The source of funds for the "new infrastructure" is mainly guided by the government and market investment. There is no significant increase in currency issuance. Even if there is, it will be similar to targeted support and supervision of capital flows. Compared with the "four trillion" in 2008, this time should not push up "housing prices", and 1 trillion is actually not much, and the "four trillion" was not the culprit for pushing up "housing prices" that year.

"New infrastructure" will bring many improvements to our lives, such as the 5G network speed we often mention now, smarter cars, smart homes, various high-tech and black-tech products of new energy vehicles, etc., our quality of life will be improved again. Of course, there are challenges, mainly because technology is developing too fast. We must constantly update and iterate ourselves to adapt to the new lifestyle. The economy, business, marketing, and management will all change. According to the seven major sectors, 5G construction will undoubtedly become the "information infrastructure" in the new infrastructure. Among them, artificial intelligence and related cloud robots, industrial Internet and other applications can be built on the basis of 5G in the future.

Now that we have mentioned 5G, let’s talk about my understanding of 5G:

1. What is 5G?

5G means the fifth generation of mobile communications. Compared with 4G, in layman's terms:

1. The Internet speed is faster, and the high speed rate is conservatively 10 times faster than 4G. For example, the application of AR/VR technology will develop faster with 5G.
2. Low latency, faster response speed and smooth Internet access. For example, it can be used in scenarios such as driverless cars or vehicle networks that have strict requirements on low latency, or in connecting machines and equipment with short latency, fast response and strong operability.
3. ) can connect more devices at the same time, and the wide connection meets the needs of the Internet of Things. Combined with IPV6, it can truly realize the interconnection of all things. Wearable devices and smart home appliances continue to flourish. In the past, when we went to concerts, there were too many people and too many mobile phones, and the mobile phones did not work well. It was very difficult to show a picture to friends circle. 5G network will not have this problem.
4. 5G signal is better. The so-called better signal does not only refer to the "small signal icon" displayed on the mobile phone. For example, under the condition of obstruction or high-speed movement (high-speed rail scenario), it can still meet and maintain a very high rate. In theory, there is no problem watching real-time video on the high-speed rail.

2. As mentioned above, 5G looks beautiful, but it also faces two problems.

One problem is 5G base stations. The network coverage is relatively small, and more base stations need to be built. Generally speaking, 4G base stations can cover an area with a radius of at least 1 km to 3 km, while the network coverage radius of 5G base stations is only 100 meters to 400 meters, so the number of 5G base stations needs to be built a lot, probably at least 3-5 times that of 4G base stations. According to China Mobile's existing network of more than 3 million 4G base stations in 2019, how huge will the construction of 5G base stations for the "new infrastructure" be in the future? It is hard to say who will achieve this large-scale success, which is remarkable. Of course, this will not be achieved overnight, nor will it be done quickly. According to official statements, it is estimated that it will be "according to the plan and in steps", etc. It will take more than 5 years to fully popularize the 5G network. Of course, hot spots and core areas in large cities will deploy and enjoy 5G first, so the "4G/5G" network synergy, accompanied by the recent crazy growth of wifi6 topics, is the current and near-term landing.

Of course, if China Mobile wants to complete coverage as soon as possible and significantly reduce the number of 5G base stations that need to be built, then co-construction, sharing, and win-win cooperation are the most valuable variables for 5G construction and the quick improvement of 5G coverage. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued four commercial licenses at one time on June 6, 2019, and planned the 5G frequency bands of various operators at the same time. Under the advocacy of national policies, in order to avoid repeated construction of 5G networks, China Telecom and China Unicom have taken the lead in high-profile cooperation, and the cooperation between China Mobile and China Broadcasting and Television has finally been announced on this special day of May 20, 2020. The most important of these is that China Broadcasting and Television's 700M golden frequency band can help China Mobile achieve rapid national coverage, and China Broadcasting and Television has taken a fancy to China Mobile's funds, mature operation and maintenance capabilities, and experience in facing market customers. Cooperation between the two parties is important and very necessary. For this precious 700M low-frequency band, compared with China Mobile's previous 2.6G/3.9G high-frequency band, this greatly reduces the number, difficulty and initial investment cost of building 5G base stations. In addition, the 700M low frequency makes it possible for China Mobile to achieve rapid and comprehensive 5G coverage.

Another problem is that for operators, the new commercial applications generated by 5G are highly conceptual and difficult to implement. For example, from a conceptual perspective, according to the "White Paper on the Top Ten Application Scenarios in the 5G Era" previously released by Huawei, the application scenarios that best reflect the capabilities of 5G can be roughly divided into 10 categories. 5G has ten major applications, including 1. VR/AR, 2. Internet of Vehicles, 3. Intelligent Manufacturing, 4. Intelligent Energy, 5. Wireless Medical, 6. Wireless Home Entertainment, 7. Networked Drones, 8. Social Networks, 9. Personal AI Assistance, and 10. Smart Cities. These require not only 5G network support, but also chip technology support, sensor technology support, etc. There are still many technological problems that have not been overcome, and of course there are 5G+ upgrades and transformations in the industry and additional, near-term, and unrewarding cost investments. Therefore, although we all know that 5G is better, there is still a long way to go for the commercial application of 5G. This is the key to whether 5G can achieve the Internet of Everything and 5G+ECO.

3. Will upgrading to 5G help ordinary users to browse Moments and TikTok?

There is definitely help, after all, it is 5G.

Some people say that using 5G to watch live broadcasts and short videos can be clearer in 4K or 8K. "Child prodigy, calm down." The truth is that the resolution of a 4K display is 3840*2160. According to the transmission rate in 4K content field tests in various countries, it only takes 17.5~35 Mbps of household bandwidth to transmit 4K ultra-clear signals (under the H.265 compression standard, the general compression ratio is 350~1000). Now every family has a 100M broadband, which is more than enough for watching 4K.

Why don't video platforms and live broadcast platforms provide 4K ultra-clear services? Because the amount of 4K transmission is too large, it will bring huge pressure to the cloud server and even the risk of downtime. Power consumption and money are necessary. You see that we use Douyin for free, but all the traffic generated by playing videos on Douyin needs to be paid. The operator is of course happy, but will Toutiao be happy? From the terminal perspective, most of our mobile phones are 1080P. Except for Lenovo and Sony, a few manufacturers have launched 2K and 4K mobile phones before, but they were quickly convinced by reality. We currently use mobile phones to surf the Internet, browse Moments and Douyin, and even play 4K without any problems. Another key issue is that users compare 2K and 4K mobile phones. It is difficult for us to distinguish them with the naked eye, and 2K and 4K consume more power and traffic. Users watch live broadcasts with 5G? According to the current 5G package policy, only the rich have no scruples...

4. NSA will be the main focus in the early stage of 5G construction, and SA independent networking will still take some time

Since the end of 2019, the three major operators have successively announced SA, that is, 5G independent networking. The basic investment will be greater and the networking will be more complicated, posing too high a challenge to both the planning and construction units and the actual operation and maintenance units.

From the technical point of view, whether high reliability and low latency can really carry the Internet of Everything is a question mark? We cannot just look at the simulation in the laboratory. From the data that has been made public, in addition to the rate demonstration, how much can the user rate reach under real load? We have not yet seen how much high reliability and low latency can reach. When 2/3/4G mobile communication technology was not commercially available, large-scale and large-capacity stress tests did not see actual data. Network "slicing" can truly provide so-called specialized networks for users in different industries, except for PPT presentations in major forums and some high-end demonstration scenes. At the same time, we must also consider the industry chain variables brought about by the new regulations of the US Department of Industry and Security since May 15, 2020. As an operator, we actually have no choice of 5G main equipment, and the terminal selection is actually not large. We can talk about 5G under the decomposition of the industry chain when we have time.

In summary, 5G is the infrastructure of the information age, and it is more about preparing for the development and take-off of the Internet of Things, Industrial Internet, Artificial Intelligence and other fields. The "5G" of operators cooperates with the participation of the country's "new infrastructure", and currently plays a role similar to wealth transfer payment, injecting "money blood" into upstream and downstream companies such as Huawei and surrounding industries, creating GDP and a large number of "job opportunities" for the country. In the future, not only will we build 5G ourselves, but if we cooperate with our "Belt and Road" plan, we will go abroad to build and operate 5G for others, and earn money from foreigners, which is invaluable.

Author: Zhang Zhaoxiang

Unit: China Mobile Terminal Company

[This article is an original article by 51CTO columnist "Mobile Labs". Please contact the original author for reprinting.]

Click here to read more articles by this author