Sprinting towards the 5G era: Base station construction speeds up and application areas expand

Recently, Shenzhen took the lead in entering the 5G era and became the first city in the world to achieve full coverage of 5G independent networking. Against the backdrop of accelerated 5G network construction, many cities in China are accelerating their layout and fully embracing 5G.

As the "leader" of new infrastructure, the popularization and penetration of China's 5G construction and applications will make people's smart life better and the smart upgrade of the industry more complete.

Shenzhen achieves full 5G coverage

On the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Shenzhen became the first city in the world to enter the 5G era. On August 17, Shenzhen announced that it had exceeded the target of building 45,000 5G base stations ahead of schedule, achieving full coverage of 5G independent networking.

Currently, there are two ways to build 5G networks: non-standalone (NSA) and standalone (SA). Non-standalone means to transform the existing 4G network, add 5G equipment, and share the core network; standalone means to build a new network, including base stations and core networks. As the construction of 5G networks accelerates, most operators will gradually turn to standalone networking.

As the "first city of 5G", Shenzhen not only leads in base station construction. According to reports, Shenzhen currently leads the world in the total number of 5G standard essential patents and the industry scale, and ranks first in the country in 5G base station and terminal shipments. A large number of leading companies such as Huawei, Tencent, ZTE, and DJI have emerged.

In terms of application, Shenzhen has invested more than 1.6 billion yuan, selected 10 fields such as medical care, education, transportation, police, and energy to carry out government application demonstrations, and selected 10 industry fields such as ultra-high-definition video, industrial Internet, smart home, and smart park to carry out typical applications, and comprehensively build a 5G application ecosystem. In the next step, Shenzhen will also be committed to breaking through major key 5G technologies, promoting the development of the 5G industry, continuously innovating and implementing the first demonstration of 5G integrated applications, comprehensively building a 5G application ecosystem, and creating a 5G global benchmark city.

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Staff of China Tower Corporation Limited add 5G antennas to the 5G base station on Pitang Road, Tianxin District, Changsha. Xinhua News Agency

The progress of website construction exceeded expectations

From a national perspective, China's 5G development has entered a comprehensive acceleration stage, and the progress of base station construction has exceeded expectations. The latest statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show that as of the end of June, my country has accumulated more than 400,000 5G base stations, and an average of more than 15,000 new 5G base stations have been opened each week recently; as of the end of July, the number of 5G terminal connections has reached 88 million.

The construction of base stations has been accelerated, and the three major telecom operators have also raised their annual 5G base station construction targets. Among them, China Mobile has raised its annual 5G base station target from 250,000 to 300,000, and plans to provide commercial services in all cities above the prefecture level in the country by the end of the year, and promote the commercialization of SA core network within the year.

Wang Zhiqin, deputy director of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said that judging from the current construction progress of the three major operators, it is expected that the plan to build 500,000 new 5G base stations throughout the year will be fully completed in September this year, and the country will then realize the commercial application of 5G independent networking.

"Network construction should be moderately ahead of time, so that the road waits for cars, rather than cars waiting for the road." Xin Guobin said that the next step is to build a "highway" for digital development, actively promote basic telecommunications companies to accelerate independent networking construction, increase efforts in joint construction and sharing, and strive to build a high-quality, economical and efficient 5G network; guide and support telecommunications companies to accelerate network construction in major cities, and gradually extend to key counties and towns with conditions and even some rural areas.

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Zhejiang Zhaofeng Electromechanical staff use 5G technology to watch the production and testing and analysis process of automobile hub bearing automated production equipment in the factory's digital brain center. Photo by Long Wei (People's Vision)

The enthusiasm for construction in various places is high

While Shenzhen is leading the way and being the first to "cross the finish line", cities across the country are also accelerating their sprint into the 5G era.

As of the end of July, Beijing has more than 24,000 5G base stations, and plans to have more than 30,000 by the end of the year, completing the task of 5G network full coverage of key functional areas such as the capital's core area and Beijing's sub-center one year ahead of schedule. Beijing Tower Company disclosed that it is currently focusing on five major application scenarios, including autonomous driving, health care, industrial Internet, smart cities, and ultra-high-definition video, and is making overall plans for major projects such as Beijing's sub-center, Beijing Daxing International Airport, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and the upgrade and renovation of Chang'an Avenue, to provide network support for the development and application of Beijing's 5G industry.

As of July this year, Shanghai has built more than 25,000 5G outdoor base stations and more than 31,000 indoor small base stations. It is expected that by the end of the year, more than 30,000 5G outdoor base stations and more than 50,000 indoor small base stations will be built. In terms of talent cultivation, Shanghai has increased policy support around the talent needs of 5G core enterprises. The mainstream 5G core industry chain enterprises have a total of 23,000 R&D talents, accounting for more than 52% of the national total.

As of June this year, Zhejiang Province has built 51,000 5G base stations. By 2022, Zhejiang plans to build more than 120,000 5G base stations and about 25 large and super-large cloud data centers, achieving full coverage of 5G signals in townships and above.

Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, recently said that it is necessary to create a "soft environment" for local support for 5G development, give full play to the driving role of 5G in the development of smart cities, further mobilize the enthusiasm of local governments at all levels, and continuously improve supporting policies in 5G network construction, security assurance, application promotion, etc., and promote the implementation of various support measures.

Application implementation changes life

With the upgrade and expansion of 5G networks, more and more applications are being rolled out to facilitate smart living.

Wang Zhiqin pointed out that most of my country's 5G integrated applications are still in the exploratory stage, but some application scenarios have gradually entered the implementation stage. Especially in the face of the COVID-19 epidemic, 5G has played an important role in epidemic prevention and control, resumption of work and production, etc.

According to the monitoring of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, as of May this year, China has implemented 484 5G applications in actual scenarios. From the perspective of sub-industries, smart medical care, news media, smart cities, Internet of Vehicles and industrial Internet have already achieved the first implementation of 5G.

The COVID-19 epidemic has affected the lifestyles and working methods of many people, and has also made the application of 5G a real reality: the "health code" provides a simple, effective and intelligent service for personnel communication and economic and trade exchanges; in the process of resuming work and production, 5G makes the large-scale popularization of online office and online education possible... From joining hands to fight the epidemic to restarting life, 5G technology is present in every detail, bringing new changes to people's travel, consumption, services, etc.

To further promote the development of 5G applications, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission launched the "Broadband Network and 5G Field" 2020 new infrastructure construction project, focusing on supporting 5G innovative applications in seven major areas such as smart medical care, virtual enterprise private networks, smart grids, and vehicle-road collaborative vehicle networks, and promoting more and more 5G industry applications to take root and take effect.

At the same time, the development of the digital economy led by 5G has also provided new employment opportunities. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology's "5G Industry Economic Contribution" predicts that from 2020 to 2025, 5G will directly create more than 3 million jobs.

Focus on the forefront of industrial development

Driven by 5G and guided by demand, the process of industrial digital transformation has accelerated, and many manufacturing companies are expanding into high-tech service fields.

5G construction itself includes hardware such as chips, devices, materials, precision processing, and software such as operating systems, cloud platforms, and databases. Among them, the combination of 5G with technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence has laid the foundation for the digital transformation of many industries.

The chip industry is one of them. The State Council recently issued the "Several Policies to Promote the High-Quality Development of the Integrated Circuit Industry and the Software Industry in the New Era", which has given a boost to the development of the domestic chip industry. Many industry insiders said that the arrival of 5G applications has enhanced the resilience of the industrial chain and is expected to make the market size of the entire integrated circuit industry exceed one trillion yuan.

In terms of operating systems and other software, Chinese companies have also taken solid steps. Recently, China Electronics released the Kylin operating system V10, which fully adapts to the needs of the 5G era and connects mobile phones, tablets, PCs, etc. to achieve multi-terminal integration. Ni Guangnan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that the security level of the operating system has reached the highest level in China, and he believes that domestically produced independent innovation software will gradually replace foreign monopolies.

Regarding the next steps in 5G construction and application, Xin Guobin said that construction will promote application, and application will drive construction. We will keep a close eye on the "forefront" of industrial development, promote research and development in various links of the industrial chain such as chips and instruments, and carry out millimeter wave technology research and development experiments. We will accelerate the development of 5G and create better conditions for the national economy to create new opportunities and open up new situations.