Is 2021 really the first year of 5G toB?

"Do you still believe in the light?"

This line from "Ultraman" has kept many people's original intentions in their hearts. In the 5G industry, there is also a saying: "Do you still believe in 5G?"

Looking at the development of China's communications market, it is not difficult to find that technology usually drives industrial change, but even so, the rapid development of communications technology has not immediately driven the development of the market - today when 5G is developing rapidly, most users still use 4G technology. But it is worth noting that the core problem of users not using 5G technology is not that it is worse than 4G, but that most users do not have specific needs for 5G.

Even in the 4G era, which began commercialization in 2014, it only achieved a full-scale explosion in recent years. The reason for this explosion was the rise of short videos such as Douyin and Kuaishou. But at this time, 5G has already begun commercialization.

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History of China's telecommunications development: The beginning of separation

Unlike other countries, the development of communications in China started with "monopoly" - in order to better promote the development of communications, the country established the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in November 1949, whose responsibility was to "unify" China's postal and telecommunications, and this "rule" lasted for more than 40 years.

• In 1995, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications registered corporate entities, and gradually implemented the separation of government and enterprises.
• In 1998, the postal and telecommunications businesses were separated, and the telecommunications business began to focus on telecommunications operations;
• In 1999, China Telecom's paging, satellite and mobile businesses were spun off. Later, paging and satellite were merged into the three major operators, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom.
• In 2000, China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as "China Mobile") was established on April 20, 2000;
• In 2000, China Telecom Corporation was officially listed;
• In 2000, China Tietong Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Tietong") was established, formerly known as Railway Communication Information Co., Ltd.;
• In 2001, China United Network Communications Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Unicom") was established on December 31, 2001.
• In 2001, China Telecom was reorganized again and split into North and South. Netcom in the North and Telecom in the South were created.
• In May 2002, the new China Telecommunications Corporation ("China Telecom") was officially re-established;
• In May 2002, China Netcom Group ("China Netcom") was officially established;
• In May 2008, China Tietong Group Co., Ltd. was merged into China Mobile Communications Corporation and became its wholly-owned subsidiary, maintaining relatively independent operations.
• In May 2008, China Telecom acquired China Unicom's CDMA network (including assets and users) for RMB 110 billion.
• In January 2009, the former China Netcom and the former China Unicom were merged to form China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as "China Unicom").

Simply put, based on the current types of telecommunications services in China, telecommunications operators can be divided into two categories: China Telecom and China Netcom based on wired transmission, and China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom based on wireless transmission.

For operators, due to historical reasons, their directions are also different: China Telecom and Netcom have achieved wired network coverage with their advantages over the years, while mobile network, as a relatively new technology, has become the main battlefield for China Mobile and China Unicom. In 2008, China Telecom's 110 billion acquisition of China Unicom's CDMA network also provided China Telecom with an "entry ticket" to the mobile network market.

The "war" among the three major operators

In 1980, in order to speed up the wireless network coverage, the country began to build 1G/2G base stations. Because these two networks have long range and wide coverage, the distance between base stations can reach several kilometers.

China Unicom and China Mobile, two domestic operators, are making every effort to build base stations based on this demand in order to seize market share. Although China Telecom has relevant qualifications, it has not placed its focus on the mobile communications field, but has continuously increased its operations in network communications.

During this process, China Mobile established a comprehensive communications service based on huge capital investment. In order to seize the market, China Unicom had to reduce fees to attract users.

With the advent of the 3G era, China Unicom adopted the international standard WCDMA network in order to seize the mobile market. In just a few years, China Unicom's 3G covered 335 large and medium-sized cities. At the same time, China Unicom did not impose too many restrictions on the 3G network, so that the maximum download rate of China Unicom's 3G network reached 2M/s, and under normal circumstances, it could achieve a rate of about 1M/s, far exceeding the other two operators.

Compared with the 2G era, China Telecom has made some progress. Since it uses code division multiple access (CDMA) technology, the call quality is relatively stable compared with the other two. Due to the rise in word of mouth, it has quickly accumulated a group of users.

China Mobile's actions were relatively weak - it did not invest too much money in the entire 3G era, mainly because it adopted the TD-SWCDMA network developed with domestic independent intellectual property rights, which could not meet international standards (if evaluated, its volume was 2.5G), so its layout was extremely slow, basically equivalent to nothing.

But in the subsequent 4G era, China Mobile began a new development - when China Telecom and China Unicom were still vigorously promoting the commercialization of 3G networks, China Mobile had taken the lead in deploying 4G base stations in first-tier cities, while China Unicom and China Telecom were far slower in construction speed than China Mobile due to various problems such as funding.

However, 4G is different from 1G/2G/3G in that its signal coverage is relatively small and the demand for base stations has increased dramatically. In order to avoid waste caused by duplicate construction, the three major operators and China Reform Holdings Co., Ltd. jointly invested in the establishment of China Tower Corporation in 2014, and all base station construction was entrusted to China Tower for construction and maintenance.

Even with the establishment of towers, China Unicom and China Telecom's investment in 4G is far less than that of China Mobile. China Mobile has 690 million 4G users, while China Unicom and China Telecom have 190 million and 180 million users respectively.

In the 5G era, China has built nearly 70% of the world's 5G base stations, and China Mobile is far ahead.

However, it is worth noting that since the three major operators have the same operation and maintenance methods and gameplay, a single fee reduction cannot effectively attract users. Therefore, the three major operators have started a new gameplay based on user needs - customized services. They divide traffic in a targeted manner according to user needs, hoping to achieve further breakthroughs.

On the surface, this approach can quickly attract a large number of users, but in the long run, this is not the ultimate solution. From the core issue point of view, the most core problem of current operators is not business problems, but internal construction - it is not only the base station that determines the data transmission speed, but also the operator's construction of urban communication networks. Due to historical construction reasons, most cities still use coaxial cables as information transmission media.

Only by solving the internal transmission problem can we better promote the development of 5G networks.

5G transmission in the minds of ordinary users

5G transmission in reality

The real battlefield: underground and in the air

Mobile network transmission can be divided into two points:

(1) Cellular transmission:

Cellular transmission is the transmission between base stations and mobile terminals. This level of transmission determines the actual user experience. In this process, base station construction becomes the core issue: how to continue to build new base stations in existing base station towers?

At present, since 2G and 3G have not been completely replaced, and 4G network is the current mainstream network. In addition, in order to save construction costs, one base station tower will usually be equipped with equipment from multiple operators, leaving very few spaces for 5G base stations.

How can 5G base stations be successfully installed on base station towers?

As a provider of 5G base stations in China, Huawei has launched the 5G Super Blade Station. Through the innovative design of "all standards in one, all frequency bands in one, and active/passive in one", it solves the problems faced by operators in 5G deployment, such as limited antenna space and the best antenna position being occupied. It shortens the deployment cycle, saves investment, and improves 5G coverage.

(2) Wired transmission

Wired transmission is data transmission between servers. The transmission speed at this level determines many issues such as the data transmission speed of the terminal.

After several years of nationwide optical network city construction, China has built a nationwide fiber optic network to meet people's basic demands for broadband connections.

However, current business innovations in smart cities have extended from households to every individual and every enterprise, and have put forward higher requirements for the connectivity, bandwidth, and experience of all-optical infrastructure. Governments, operators, and upstream and downstream industrial chains all need to consider how to build a new all-optical city base for future smart cities.

It is reported that the various application innovations of smart cities are mapped to the types of connected services, which can be summarized into three types of quality service applications: quality private lines, quality video and quality 5G. From the perspective of network carrying requirements for these three business scenarios, their core carrying demands can be summarized as "three lows and four highs": ultra-low latency at the millisecond level, ultra-low jitter at the microsecond level, ultra-low packet loss rate, as well as high bandwidth, high reliability, high availability and high intelligence.

In response to this, Huawei has also proposed a corresponding solution - All-Optical City 2.0.

It is understood that All-Optical City 2.0 is a city target network architecture proposed based on the innovative application scenario needs of smart cities and matching the planning of urban communication infrastructure. Specifically, All-Optical City 2.0 includes four major components: all-optical access, all-optical anchor points, all-optical switching, and all-optical autonomous driving network.

Will 2021 be the first year of 5G ToB?

According to data, in 2020, 5G ToB commercial use started, and more than 20 industries around the world have deployed 5G demonstration applications, such as coal mines, industrial manufacturing, ports, etc. Global operators have signed more than 1,000 5G industry application contracts.

Behind these data is the reflection of the comprehensive development of "air" and "underground".

Ding Yun, executive director of Huawei and president of the Carrier BG, said at the MWCS 2021 media analyst pre-communication meeting that to promote the large-scale commercialization and development of 5G ToB, it is necessary to build end-to-end 5G industry application solution capabilities and service processes.

But it is worth noting that many users know that the development trend of 5G is inevitable, but for corporate users, cost is the basis for everything. If the cost increases but does not bring enough profit, then this technology will be a technology that cannot be implemented.

Although operators have said in their publicity that the price of 5G has dropped to a certain extent compared to 4G, this is based on the "average" value, that is, the price of "1G" or "1M", which is not fair to users - if the package is not used up, the excess traffic will automatically expire or be converted to a lower traffic count next month.

Gan Quan, LoRa's market strategy director, once joked: "No matter how fast 5G is, users will still choose WiFi when they return home." The same principle applies to enterprises.

However, it is worth noting that after the large-scale application of smart mobile terminals, huge amounts of data will fill every data transmission channel. Without high-speed, low-latency, and high-throughput wireless transmission technology, a large number of delays and other problems will occur. 5G is the best solution.

This will also be the beginning of 5G ToB.