Editorial: 5G should adhere to the development model of mutual promotion between construction and use

At a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on the 24th, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that my country's 5G construction in 2020 can be said to be "running at a rapid pace." At the same time, in the future, we must not only focus on network construction goals, but also work harder on 5G applications.

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The "rapid progress" is supported by the following sets of data: about 580,000 new 5G base stations have been added this year, and about 330,000 5G base stations have been promoted to be jointly built and shared. The goal of 5G coverage in all cities and counties determined at the beginning of the year has been achieved, and more than 1 million new 5G base stations are expected to be built across the country in 2021; in the first 11 months of this year, the domestic market 5G mobile phone shipments reached 144 million units, accounting for more than half of the total mobile phone shipments; the number of 5G terminal connections has exceeded 200 million.

The technology, the infrastructure and the users are there. This is the current status of 5G development in my country.

The reality of 5G construction is very rich, and the prospects are even broader. Based on the present and looking forward to the future, the research on 6G vision will also be put on the agenda. But what needs to be solved now is to enhance the applicability of 5G, to gradually develop from "usable" to "easy to use", and to create more commercial value.

As the spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said, the construction of 5G is to lay the foundation for applications, and the ultimate goal of 5G is to make good use of 5G. Relevant research reports show that in 2020, 5G will directly drive my country's total economic output of 810.9 billion yuan and directly drive economic added value of 189.7 billion yuan. Obviously, these data are far from the goal of my country's efforts to develop 5G. The value of 5G lies in its practical application, which will produce greater social and economic benefits.

The practical application of 5G has always been taken seriously at both the national and local levels. Since 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has organized the "Blooming Cup" 5G Application Competition every year. This year's third competition collected more than 4,000 5G application cases, while the first competition only collected more than 300. These projects have shown unexpected results in hot areas such as smart manufacturing, medical care, and energy.

Moreover, 5G applications have blossomed in various places. Recently, the 5G Eco-city Promotion Activity and 5G Promotion Activity Month of Lingang New Area in Shanghai Free Trade Zone were launched. Representatives of four streets and towns and development companies in Lingang New Area signed the "Joint Construction Agreement on 5G Communication Infrastructure Construction and Application Promotion" with Shanghai Tower Company; Shenzhen City also recently issued the "Several Measures on Vigorously Promoting the Development of 5G Innovative Applications", aiming to give full play to its 5G industrial chain advantages and 5G infrastructure scale effect; Zhejiang Province has also issued a document to promote the extensive application of 5G in industrial manufacturing, urban governance, people's livelihood services, cultural entertainment and other fields, to cultivate 100 key scenario applications, and strive to form large-scale applications of 5G as soon as possible.

The key word here is "application". All regions should combine local economic and industrial development to further strengthen the summary, promotion, exploration and innovation of 5G applications, and form a virtuous development model of "promoting use through construction and promoting construction through use".

The application field of 5G is very broad, but the fundamental focus should be on high-end, not just on "selling vegetables", and capital investment should not be limited to this. The next important task in the field of 5G application is to further optimize the layout of data center construction, improve the level of application development, and gradually improve the types of applications, cloud service capabilities, application depth and software richness.

To strengthen the application of 5G, the key is innovation. From the perspective of my country, 5G has provided a good foundation for applications in agriculture, manufacturing, medical care and other industries. But this is not enough. We must make full use of the 5G platform to promote the integration and development of 5G with manufacturing, energy, transportation, agriculture and other real economies in various fields, and accelerate the digitalization, networking and intelligent transformation of traditional industries.

In short, in the next 2 to 3 years, the 5G industry will see more new products and new formats. This is a blue ocean and the foundation for the development of 5G. Now we need to focus not only on network construction goals, but also on 5G applications. This requires national policy support, local government attention, corporate efforts, and capital support.