There are four major challenges in the development of 5G. The next 2-3 years will be a critical period for the development of 5G.

A total of more than 700,000 5G base stations have been built and put into operation, 800 industry-oriented virtual private networks have been built, application scenarios that are expected to be commercially available on a large scale have been initially formed in more than 10 fields, and the cumulative shipments of 5G mobile phones have exceeded 100 million... Since my country officially issued licenses in 2019, in just over a year, 5G has made great progress, bringing about considerable chemical reactions in all walks of life and making people's lives more colorful.

"This year is the first year of large-scale commercial use of 5G. Many aspects such as network construction, mobile terminal shipments, and user development have exceeded expectations and achieved remarkable results." Wei Liurong, deputy chief engineer of the Policy and Economic Research Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said in an interview with Feixiang.com at the "2021 China Academy of Information and Communications Technology ICT+ In-depth Observation Report Conference" on December 15. At the same time, she also pointed out that there are still four major challenges for 5G to further unleash its potential, and the next 2-3 years will be a critical period for the development of 5G.

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China's 5G delivers impressive results

There is no doubt that China's 5G is already at the forefront of the world, whether in terms of network construction, mobile terminal shipments or user development.

Wei Liurong said that from the network perspective, 5G network development has begun to take shape. This year, the number of 5G network base stations has exceeded 700,000, which is more than all other countries combined. At the same time, the performance of the entire 5G network has improved rapidly, and the average download rate of 5G network has reached hundreds of megabits. The exploration of virtual private networks for the industry has made positive progress, and there are currently 800 virtual private networks.

From the perspective of technical standards, 5G technical standards continue to evolve in two directions: enhancing 5G technical capabilities and supporting vertical industry applications. "This year, the R16 standard was officially released, and 5G's key performance, network basic capabilities, and application capabilities have all been significantly improved," said Wei Liurong.

She further introduced that: "The 5G key core technology - end-to-end network slicing technology standard has made great progress. At present, the end-to-end overall architecture of 5G network slicing and the inter-domain pull-through test of sub-slices of equipment from the same manufacturer have been completed. A breakthrough has been made in the research of 5G industry virtual private network standards, and relevant progress has been made in network architecture, external service capabilities, lightweight UPF, and integration with industry LANs."

From the perspective of the mobile industry chain, the 5G product market is developing rapidly, 5G base stations and mobile phone terminals have achieved large-scale shipments, and Chinese manufacturers have occupied a large share. Millimeter wave technology equipment and networking tests have been completed, taking another step towards commercialization. The main links of the independent networking industry chain, such as base station equipment, core network products, and mobile phone chips, are gradually maturing.

In terms of 5G applications, Wei Liurong said that overall, it is still in the introduction stage. Although operators and Internet companies are planning consumer-level applications, there are no phenomenal applications yet, and consumers' perception is not obvious enough. But compared with other countries, our industry applications have made great breakthroughs this year, and many industry applications have begun to be commercialized.

Wei Liurong said: "According to the data of the projects participating in the third "Zhanhua Cup" competition, more than 30%, or nearly 1,300 projects, have relatively mature solutions and have begun to enter the demonstration and commercial implementation stage. Looking at the national scope, this number is even greater."

In addition, Wei Liurong pointed out that 5G's industrial applications have initially formed application scenarios that are expected to be commercialized on a large scale in 10 fields, including factories, mines, ports, medical care, power grids, transportation, security, education, cultural tourism and smart cities. The acceptance of 5G's industrial applications in various industries is also increasing. Many industries have incorporated 5G into their informatization guidelines or promoted relevant industry standards. Some leading companies in the industry are also actively promoting the integration of 5G applications and their digital transformation.

"Overall, 5G's performance this year is still very good. Of course, it may still be some distance away from the explosion of 5G applications expected by consumers. But after all, 5G's commercial development is still in its early stages, and we must give it more time to develop," Wei Liurong emphasized.

There are four major challenges to further unleash potential

Although my country has achieved very good results in 5G development, Wei Liurong pointed out that there are still four major challenges in further unleashing the potential of 5G.

First, 5G networks have not yet achieved nationwide coverage. Since last year, my country has built more than 700,000 base stations, but it is still far from enough to achieve wide coverage in the vast country. Many applications for ordinary consumers, 2B2C, and industry applications in a wider area, such as unmanned food delivery, smart city management, ecological environment monitoring, and 5G mobile hospitals, still need the support of a wide-coverage 5G network. "Of course, this is a developing problem, which will be effectively solved as the scale of subsequent network construction is promoted."

Second, the technical maturity of 5G in supporting industry applications needs to be improved. 5G technology still needs to evolve and develop. The existing R15 version cannot meet the needs of industry applications. It will take another 1-2 years for the 5G R16 standard version that supports low latency and high reliability to be commercially available. At the same time, technologies such as network slicing and edge computing, which are relatively important in industry applications, are expected to have large-scale deployment capabilities in 1-2 years. Compared with 4G, 5G's service objects and application scenarios have undergone qualitative changes, but a single 5G technology cannot cover everything. We must continue to explore the optimization and upgrading of 5G technology in commercial practice.

Third, the supporting industries for 5G applications are still in the early stages of development. The high prices of 5G industry chips and modules restrict the richness of 5G industry terminals. In addition, the application industries related to 5G are still immature, and industries such as VR/AR and 8K are still in the early stages of commercial use and cannot support the scale development of typical 5G applications. At the same time, 5G needs to be deeply integrated with new-generation ICT technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data, but current solutions still need to be continuously adapted.

Fourth, the cross-industry industrial ecology has not yet been established. 5G must be integrated with various industries to empower thousands of industries. At present, the industry and information and communication fields have not yet established a communication and docking platform for in-depth cooperation, and cross-industry cooperation has certain difficulties. 5G integrated applications have not yet formed a stable industrial ecology. The current cooperation model is mainly led by operators. It is urgent to cooperate with all parties, especially leading enterprises with strong strength to actively play a leading role. In addition, the 5G integrated application standards that are already being promoted are also facing problems such as slow industry standard formulation processes.

The next 2-3 years will be a critical period for the development of 5G

Wei Liurong pointed out that the policy dividends will continue in the next 2-3 years, corporate investment willingness will remain high, and industry customers' acceptance of 5G will gradually increase. "We must fully seize this opportunity, accelerate the development of 5G, support the overall comprehensive upgrade of 5G, promote its integration with thousands of industries, generate more new products, new businesses, and new services, and promote the comprehensive development of the digital economy."

In terms of network, 5G network will gradually achieve wide-area coverage in the next 2-3 years. Wei Liurong said that judging from the development stage of 3-4G in the past, 5G will still be in the stage of wide-area coverage in the next few years.

In terms of applications, Wei Liurong believes that consumer applications will mature earlier than industrial applications. "After all, consumer applications are relatively simpler. We expect that innovative consumer applications with 5G features will begin to grow in scale in 2022-2023."

In terms of industry applications, Wei Liurong said that the scale growth will come later, perhaps after 2023. Of course, between 2021 and 2023, some relatively simple industry applications such as ultra-high-definition video live broadcast and monitoring, intelligent recognition, etc. will begin to be implemented in batches, but applications with higher technical requirements, such as immersive experience based on cloud-edge collaboration, remote control applications based on low latency and high reliability, etc., will gradually mature in the next 2-5 years.

In terms of technological innovation, the focus of 5G innovation in the future will still be to enhance its support for industry applications. "We can see that 5G network technology will be more prominent in terms of enhanced Internet of Vehicles, ultra-high reliability and low latency, high-precision positioning, virtual private networks, etc."

In terms of industry, 5G product forms will be more diverse. Industry modules have begun to be mass-produced. It is estimated that China's 5G industry module shipments will be nearly 500,000 pieces in 2020, and will reach 10 million pieces in 2022. The price of industry modules is expected to drop to less than US$40. Secondly, the development of pan-terminals has been accelerated. 5G pan-terminals are expected to be popularized and iteratively evolved first in non-cost-sensitive fields such as industry and medical care, and continue to evolve in cultural education, leisure and entertainment. Some technologies and product equipment of 5G edge computing will gradually land in the next 2-3 years.

In addition, Wei Liurong believes that industry enabling platforms will also develop well. "In order to better promote the use of 5G technology by small and medium-sized enterprises and some traditional industries, more and more industry enabling platforms based on 5G and cloud computing will emerge, providing comprehensive capabilities such as cloud computing, edge computing, big data, and artificial intelligence to meet the relatively common needs of various industries for positioning, voice recognition, and graphic recognition. At the same time, the service capabilities provided by industry enabling platforms will also promote the better development of the entire 5G application."