A big competition among operators’ 5G strengths!

Recently, according to the latest news from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China has built the world's largest fiber-optic network, 4G and 5G independent networking networks. Currently, 916,000 5G base stations have been built, accounting for 70% of the world, and the number of 5G connections has exceeded 365 million, accounting for 80% of the world. China's 5G construction leads the world!

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Since the issuance of 5G licenses in 2019, China's 5G network construction has entered the "fast lane". In the 2020 "new infrastructure" strategic plan, 5G is placed in one of the most important positions, which has further promoted the construction and development of 5G. In addition, the "5G Application "Sailing" Action Plan (2021-2023)" issued by the state recently also proposed a goal that by 2023, the level of 5G application development in my country will be significantly improved, and the overall strength will continue to increase. The following editor will take you to see the true 5G strength of the four major domestic operators!

China Mobile

Since the issuance of 5G commercial licenses in 2019, China Mobile's 5G construction has been in the leading position.

China Mobile disclosed that as of the end of June, China Mobile had built nearly 500,000 5G base stations, accounting for more than 36% of the world's total 5G base stations, and had the world's largest SA commercial network. The number of 5G terminal connections exceeded 160 million, accounting for more than 40% of the global total, and the number of 5G package users exceeded 250 million. The number of 5G base stations of China Mobile alone is basically the same as the total of China Telecom and China Unicom.

In addition, in January this year, China Mobile and China Broadcasting Corporation officially launched the 5G co-construction and sharing plan. The two parties will jointly invest in the construction, expansion and renovation of the 700MHz wireless network in a 1:1 ratio. On June 25, commissioned by China Broadcasting Corporation, China Mobile launched a tender for 480,000 5G 700M base station equipment. This tender means that the co-construction and sharing of the 5G 700MHz network of China Mobile and China Broadcasting Corporation has officially entered the substantive operation stage, and also means that a Sub 1GHz low-frequency 5G network with the widest coverage and the thickest capacity in the world is accelerating.

China Telecom

China Telecom and China Unicom adopt a co-construction and sharing strategy for 5G, so the 5G scale and construction progress of the two companies are basically the same.

In March this year, China Telecom announced its full-year results for 2020. China Telecom pointed out that in 2020, it continued to promote the joint construction and sharing of 5G networks, with 380,000 5G base stations in use, achieving continuous coverage of 5G networks in all cities at or above the prefecture level, key counties and cities, and important indoor buildings. The maximum peak rate reached 2.7Gbps, ranking first in the world.

Recently, Zhang Xin, general manager of China Telecom's 5G co-construction and sharing working group, said that since the full launch of 5G network co-construction and sharing in September 2019, China Telecom and China Unicom have built the world's largest 5G SA co-construction and sharing commercial network. At present, China Telecom and China Unicom have co-built and shared more than 400,000 5G base stations. Preliminary estimates show that both parties have saved more than 80 billion yuan in investment and 8 billion yuan in operating costs each year.

It is understood that China Telecom plans to spend RMB 39.7 billion on 5G-related capital expenditures in 2021, plans to open 700,000 5G base stations by the end of 2021, and build 320,000 new 5G base stations throughout the year, with the goal of expanding 5G network coverage to all counties and some towns. As of the end of May, China Telecom had a total of 124 million 5G package users.

China Unicom

In March this year, China Unicom announced the number of 5G package users for the first time. The data showed that as of December 31, 2020, the number of China Unicom's 5G package users reached 70.83 million, with a market share of 22.0% and a penetration rate of 23.2%. As of the end of May this year, China Unicom's 5G package users had reached 106 million.

In 2021, China Unicom plans to spend about 35 billion yuan on 5G capital expenditures, add about 320,000 5G base stations, nearly half of which will be built by Unicom, and make full use of 2.1GHz and 3.5GHz hybrid networking to expand 5G coverage in urban areas and indoor depth, major county towns and developed towns; among them, the 2.1GHz frequency band is mainly used for wide-area and general indoor coverage, which can effectively reduce TCO. It will also support SA across the entire network and vigorously promote the commercial use of network slicing, URLLC, 5G private networks and MEC.

On the evening of July 9, China Telecom and China Unicom published the "2021 5G SA Construction Project Wireless Main Equipment (2.1G) Joint Centralized Procurement Project Tender Announcement" on major bidding websites, planning to purchase a total of 242,000 stations with a maximum bid price of 20.532 billion yuan. Some media said that this move was to counter China Mobile and China Broadcasting Corporation's plan to build 480,000 700MHz 5G base stations.

China Radio and Television

On June 6, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a 5G license to China Radio and Television, making it the fourth operator with a 5G license after China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom. China Radio and Television has entered the 5G era side by side with the three major operators.

As a new entrant in the communications field, China Radio and Television did not have much accumulation before. Therefore, in the fierce 5G construction war among the other three major operators, China Radio and Television basically did not have much presence. But in fact, the 700MHz frequency band owned by China Radio and Television is its "trump card" on the road to 5G construction.

700MHz is known as the "golden frequency band" in the industry. It has advantages in coverage distance, strong diffraction ability, strong wall penetration ability, etc. It is suitable for large-scale continuous network coverage and can greatly save 5G construction costs. Therefore, the 700MHz frequency band has become a hot existence in 5G construction. At the same time, the radio and television 700MHz also has a 2*30MHz bandwidth, which has certain capacity advantages.

But resources alone are not enough. As mentioned above, on January 26, 2021, China Mobile and China Radio and Television signed a "5G Strategic Cooperation Agreement" in Beijing. On June 25, the 700MHz equipment bidding was officially launched. This powerful combination not only helped the 5G construction of radio and television, but also brought certain pressure to China Telecom and China Telecom. Through these 480,000 5G 700M base stations, China Mobile and China Radio and Television can hybridly network with the existing 5G 2.6GHz network, which can not only quickly achieve deep urban coverage of 5G signals and wide-area coverage in rural and suburban areas, but also greatly improve the edge rate of 5G networks to meet the needs of 2C and 2B services that require wide-area coverage, such as VoNR, live broadcast, video conferencing, video surveillance, and Internet of Vehicles.

Under the same conditions, the coverage of the 2.6GHz+700MHz network of China Mobile and China Broadcasting Corporation is stronger than that of the 3.5GHz+2.1GHz network of China Telecom and China Unicom. To achieve the same scale of network coverage, the number of base stations required for 700M is also significantly less than that of 2.1GHz. However, 2.1GHz can use AAU devices that support FDD Massive MIMO to fill the coverage gap with 700M and further improve network capacity. At present, it is still unknown who will win or lose in this "two-on-two" model.