Comprehensive promotion of 5G construction requires full participation from all parties

Although the top leadership has once again clarified the requirements for speed increase and fee reduction and has been actively interpreted by various parties, 5G is still the focus of everyone's attention and its dazzling quality is very strong. Regardless of whether everyone really recognizes the value of 5G, the application focus of 5G is indeed in industry applications. It should be said that 5G+ is the real place for 5G to be used. To promote the value of 5G, the joint participation of social forces is needed.

1. Excessive focus on personal applications may have very limited significance

Since the commercial launch of 5G, people have been paying attention to it. Driven by the idea that 5G can help us achieve global technological leadership, any developments related to 5G will become the focus of attention. Compared with the various theories of professionals, the general public's attention to 5G is more focused on whether 5G will be faster.

5G can indeed make everyone's Internet access faster and allow everyone to enjoy a better and cheaper network experience, but this is not the focus of 5G. The value of 5G lies in industry applications. This is also one of the reasons why China Unicom has been slow to disclose its 5G package user data.

Although the popularization of 5G still needs to start from the simplest individual users and proceed from the simple to the difficult, it is definitely a wrong path to focus only on individual users, and to a certain extent it is going in the opposite direction. This may be a common problem among most analysts at present.

Although individual 5G users can contribute traffic and revenue to operators, they only account for about 20% of the total value distribution of 5G. Operators are now putting a lot of energy into the development of individual 5G users. In addition to the lack of industry applications, more importantly, there are very few co-promoters of industry applications.

2. Why is 5G’s industry application so tepid?

Operators are certainly aware of the value of 5G in industry applications, and have continued to invest huge amounts of money in network construction and application research and development. From the current situation, 5G industry applications have not received the same level of response from other industries, or this attention has only remained at attention, but has not been implemented in action.

The difficulty of 5G industry application is not only the lack of modules or chips, but more importantly, the comprehensive participation of various scenarios. This process not only requires a large amount of material resources, but also, in the case of an unoptimistic macroeconomic situation, the input-output ratio has become a difficult decision-making point for many companies.

5G is a national project. In addition to operators’ full efforts to promote its construction, other large state-owned enterprises should also actively participate in the innovation and application of various application scenarios. Whether it is 5G+smart grid or 5G+telemedicine, operators are more of a channel role, and the real value lies in the industry.

3. To realize the value of 5G, all parties must participate together

The three major application scenarios of 5G are: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (uRLLC). At present, 5G has achieved phased results in terms of standards and network construction. The last link of 5G implementation - application scenarios has become the focus of the industry.

The value of 5G should be realized by combining technologies such as artificial intelligence, mobile edge computing, end-to-end network slicing, and drones, with a focus on breakthroughs in vertical industries such as VR/AR, ultra-high-definition video, Internet of Vehicles, drones, intelligent manufacturing, electricity, medical care, and smart cities.

At present, except for Internet companies such as BATJ, most of the leaders in these vertical fields are large and super-large state-owned enterprises. BATJ and other Internet companies are carrying out 5G-related construction for their own development needs. Our large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises also need to strive to seize the commanding heights of combining with 5G and promote intelligent manufacturing.

Although the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, operators, and equipment manufacturers are leading the way in 5G technology, the participants in promoting the value of 5G are definitely not just operators. Moreover, the operators' own capabilities alone cannot support the development of 5G dedicated networks and special scenarios for the entire society.

In a sense, comprehensively promoting 5G capacity building and realizing its value requires higher-level regulatory authorities to coordinate resources from all parties and fully mobilize the participation of all sectors of society. This requires not only Internet companies such as BATJ, but also large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises and characteristic small and medium-sized enterprises.

5G starts from eMBB scenarios and gradually penetrates into uRLLC and mMTC scenarios. In this process, cross-border integration is a "compulsory course" and a necessary path for 5G. How to learn this "compulsory course" and walk this necessary path well? The regulatory authorities should coordinate and promote policies based on the development of 5G technology, the progress of network deployment, and the situation of vertical industries, and widely mobilize all parties to participate in order to achieve my country's long-term goal of leading the world in science and technology.