Forecast of 5G development trends in 2021

When searching for hot words in 2020, it can be said that no word can surpass 5G. Due to the epidemic, the construction intensity and development speed of 5G networks have been unprecedentedly amplified in the past year. 5G has also rapidly penetrated into all aspects of life and work in an unprecedented manner.

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Driven by the new infrastructure wave, 5G network construction has been completed beyond expectations. As of now, my country has built more than 700,000 5G base stations, covering all cities at the prefecture level and above in the country.

In the new year, everyone from the consumer to the industry is looking forward to 5G. How will 5G evolve? How will terminals and applications develop?

The rapid development of 5G networks has driven the improvement of 5G terminals and the improvement of the industrial integration application ecosystem. As 5G empowers more vertical industries, the diversified and differentiated vertical industry integration application needs have promoted the evolution and development of 5G network technology. Looking at all aspects of 5G networks, terminals, services, etc., the development trends of 5G in 2021 are as follows.

1.5G has strong development momentum

By 2020, 5G has become an important part of my country's new infrastructure strategy. As the key to new infrastructure, the acceleration of 5G network in 5G development has been repeatedly mentioned. With the rapid development of my country's 5G network driven by the new infrastructure and the continuous expansion of the scale of the entire industry, the strategic moderate advancement effect of my country's 5G network construction has begun to emerge. According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by the end of 2020, the total number of 5G base stations in my country will reach 700,000, and the number of 5G terminal accesses will reach 180 million. The construction of 5G networks has laid a solid foundation for the development of integrated applications in vertical industries. Integrated applications such as 5G+smart factories, 5G+smart medical care, and 5G+smart education are constantly emerging. It is conceivable that in the next few years, toC applications with 5G characteristics will grow in scale, and toB applications will gradually mature and gradually enter commercial applications. This will put higher requirements on the coverage and performance of 5G networks. Based on the principle of moderate advancement of public infrastructure, 5G network construction will continue to develop steadily and rapidly in the next three years, with strong development momentum.

2. Accelerating the construction of 5G application ecosystem integrating vertical industries

The development goal of 5G networks is to realize intelligent information connection between "people and people", "people and things", and "things and things". With the vigorous construction and development of 5G networks in 2020, industry application innovations are constantly ongoing. 5G has begun to empower thousands of industries such as industry, transportation, energy, medical care, and economic society, thereby promoting a new round of changes in production and lifestyle.

Although 5G signals have covered Mount Everest and 5G vertical industry integrated applications are emerging in an endless stream, it must be said that applications for public customers are mostly still concentrated in ultra-high-definition video transmission, AR/VR, etc. Killer applications are still being explored, and the business model of 5G integrated applications for the industry still needs further research.

Therefore, in order to give full play to the value of 5G, in the next few years, the industry will inevitably accelerate the construction of the 5G industry ecosystem, enrich and deepen the integrated application of 5G and vertical industries, and gradually promote the large-scale commercial use of 5G in the fields of industrial Internet, education, medical care, smart cities, etc.

3. Technological evolution meets diverse needs

The application needs of vertical industries also require 5G technology to continue to evolve in order to maintain its technological and industrial support advantages.

In terms of uplink demand, the uplink rate requirements of 5G2B services such as high-definition monitoring have not been met at present. Taking the current 3.5GHz frequency band and 100MHz bandwidth as an example, the 5G uplink peak rate is only 380Mbit/s, and the uplink rate is severely limited. It is urgent to improve the uplink service rate through 5G enhanced technologies such as uplink carrier aggregation, flexible frame structure configuration, and millimeter wave large bandwidth, so as to achieve uplink gigabit network capabilities and meet the uplink needs of vertical industries.

In terms of low latency requirements, the current 5G vertical business application characteristics, especially network latency requirements, are significantly different from network capability requirements. Therefore, the network latency experience will affect the profitability of the operator's network. This requires the introduction of technologies such as uRLLC to empower diverse services for consumers and industry users, while meeting low latency requirements and creating ultimate network capabilities that are scalable, manageable and controllable.

In terms of indoor large-capacity demand, 5G indoor services will explode. It is predicted that more than 80% of 5G services will occur indoors in the future, and indoor capacity demand will further increase.

4. Comprehensively develop 5G pan-terminals to reduce costs

As the construction of 5G networks is in full swing, the categories and forms of 5G terminals are gradually enriched and the prices are getting cheaper. According to statistics, as of the end of November 2020, there were 303 5G commercial terminals in the world, including 205 smartphones, 34 5G CPEs, 23 5G modules, 16 5G mobile hotspots, and 6 5G tablets. In addition, more 5G terminal types such as drones, head-mounted displays, robots, TVs, USB network cards/modems/adapters, vending machines, etc. have also appeared one after another.

As 5G modules develop towards universalization and modularization, 5G pan-terminals will surely accelerate and develop in an all-round way. In the next few years, with the comprehensive development and large-scale production of 5G pan-terminals, the prices of 5G terminals will inevitably drop further.

5.5G network five-in-one integration

As we all know, one of the major features of 5G is that the communication network has expanded from single consumers to thousands of industries. The continuous deepening of 5G empowering the digital transformation of vertical industries will inevitably require 5G networks to carry more vertical industry needs. Cloud-network integration combines 5G networks with cloud service capabilities, and can rely on 5G's large bandwidth, low latency, and wide connection access capabilities to meet the flexible configuration of different applications of industry customers in various fields.

Cloud-network integration is the general direction of the in-depth transformation of the telecommunications industry. At the same time, edge computing technology is also indispensable to meet the more personalized, fragmented, and higher real-time requirements of vertical industries.

Therefore, the future 5G network will inevitably deepen the integrated integration of cloud, network, edge, end and industry, so as to better balance the needs of 2C and 2B users, achieve the upgrade from satisfying public consumer services to industrial empowerment, assist in the transformation and upgrading of industry applications, and accelerate the digitalization process of traditional industries.

6.5G co-construction and sharing gradually forms a demonstration

So far, my country has jointly built and shared more than 300,000 5G base stations. 5G joint construction and sharing has become an important means to improve the asset operation efficiency of operators and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results in a more intensive and efficient manner.

The subsequent 5G network co-construction and sharing will surely go deeper and may even expand to more resource elements (such as cloud resources). 5G co-construction and sharing will also form a demonstration and benchmark, thereby releasing more dividends to the industry and contributing valuable solutions to the development of the digital economy. With the development of co-construction and sharing, in order to meet the needs of refined operations, it is also necessary to introduce trusted technologies such as blockchain to ensure healthy and sustainable development.