Why does China Telecom have the confidence to plan its 6G business ahead of time?

Wang Guirong, general manager of China Telecom's Science and Technology Innovation Department, recently talked about China Telecom's layout in 6G research and development. He said that the early layout of 6G is to independently control the core technology.

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China Telecom focuses on two aspects of 6G

The countdown to China Telecom's A-share listing has begun. Recently, China Telecom issued an announcement to determine the issue price of 4.53 yuan per share. According to the issue price, the total amount of funds raised by China Telecom this time is expected to be 47.094 billion yuan to 54.159 billion yuan.

According to previous announcements, the funds raised by China Telecom in its A-share IPO will be used for 5G industrial Internet construction projects, cloud-network integrated new information infrastructure projects, and scientific and technological innovation and research and development projects. Among them, scientific and technological innovation and research and development involve cutting-edge technology research such as 6G and quantum information.

According to Wang Guirong, China Telecom focuses on two aspects of 6G:

The first is the evolution of 5G, especially the extension of cloud technology to wireless access networks, support for vertical industries, and expansion of coverage and capacity. The second is new technology fields such as AI, digital twins, computing power networks, and blockchain.

Why do we need to plan for 6G in advance?

It is generally believed that integrated air-space-ground communication is one of the main features of 6G. Recently, China Telecom's satellite communications and tethered drone aerial base stations rushed to Henan for emergency prevention and assistance and performed well on the front line of flood control and disaster relief, which was regarded by the industry as a "preview" of 6G integrated air-space-ground communication.

In order to seize the commanding heights of 6G technology, countries around the world are now competing to make plans. In November 2019, my country established the National 6G Technology R&D Promotion Working Group and the Overall Expert Group, officially launching 6G R&D.

On May 12 this year, Liu Liehong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, presided over a special meeting on 5G/6G, requiring in-depth research on 6G application scenarios; at the same time, efforts were made to promote innovative breakthroughs in key technologies, focusing on 6G potential technologies such as terahertz communications, integrated communications and perception, and the integration of communications and artificial intelligence, and strive to make major breakthroughs in key core technologies.

It has basically become an industry consensus that 6G will drive society towards "digital twins" and "ubiquitous intelligence". China Telecom believes that 6G has five key features: ubiquitous, intelligent, digital, trustworthy, and extreme. China Telecom has proposed a vision for the 6G network architecture, which is to form a ubiquitous hyper-converged network architecture based on "three layers and three fans". The three layers refer to the three layers of the SDN architecture network, which are divided into the infrastructure layer, the network function layer, and the network operating system layer. The three fans represent the capabilities of intelligence/trustworthiness and digital integration. These endogenous capabilities will span three layers.

In accordance with the rule of "applying one generation and developing one generation" in mobile communication technology, China Telecom began the research and development and layout of 6G as early as 2019. The research direction is mainly 6G technology with millimeter wave as the main frequency and terahertz as the secondary frequency. At the 5G Co-construction and Sharing Summit of the World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC 2021), Liu Guiqing, deputy general manager of China Telecom, also formally proposed to integrate the concept of network sharing into the vision of 6G standards.

China's mobile communications industry has gone through a process of "1G blank, 2G follow-up, 3G breakthrough, 4G parallel running, and 5G surpassing". China Telecom believes that 5G is the present and 6G is the future. 6G has become one of the focuses of strategic competition in science and technology among major countries. Early deployment of 6G research and development is conducive to mastering core technologies in its own hands.

6G R&D needs to meet multiple challenges

Experts say

There are four main challenges facing 6G research and development: first, basic theoretical innovation is relatively weak, and there is a lack of transformative technological breakthroughs; second, "bottleneck" problems such as core chips and components still exist; third, high-frequency systems such as millimeter waves and terahertz may subvert operators' traditional network construction and operation models; fourth, the uncertainty of the trend of international relations will lead to an increase in the risk of differentiation between 6G standards and industries in the future.

It is reported that China Telecom has established a cross-disciplinary 6G R&D team to systematically carry out 6G R&D work and actively undertake key international and domestic research tasks. China Telecom has led a number of national key 6G special research projects and participated in the research work of 6G domestic and international industry organizations such as the Future Forum, IMT2030, and ANA.

China Telecom believes that both 5G and 6G are inseparable from technological innovation. The core of technological innovation is people. It is understood that China Telecom currently has more than 10,000 R&D personnel at the professional company level, and will further recruit high-end talents in the future to strengthen the R&D team. In terms of the proportion of R&D personnel, it will increase from the current 5% to more than 10% or even 20% in the next few years.

It is worth noting that the preliminary price inquiry for China Telecom's A-share listing has been completed, and offline and online subscriptions are currently being carried out. One of the main uses of the funds raised is for 6G and other technological innovation research and development projects.

China Telecom will also further cooperate with universities, research institutes, etc. to carry out research on key 6G technologies.

In short, in the face of 6G challenges, decision-making, talent, R&D investment and ecosystem construction are all essential.