Comment: Who is the first 5G city?

In order to further unleash the role of new infrastructure construction such as 5G in driving economic growth, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on March 4, pointing out that "we must accelerate the construction of new infrastructure such as 5G networks and data centers."

Governments at all levels across the country have responded positively and issued a large number of policy documents such as action plans, implementation plans, and guiding opinions, creating a good policy environment for the development of 5G and actively promoting 5G network construction, application demonstration, and industrial development.

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As a result, the title of “First 5G City” has sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

On August 17, Shenzhen Mayor Chen Rugui announced that Shenzhen has achieved full coverage of 5G independent networking and has taken the lead in entering the 5G era. It is reported that as of August 14, Shenzhen has built 46,480 5G base stations. As of July 26, Shenzhen has built 45,000 5G base stations, ranking first in China in terms of base station density, making it the world's first 5G city. Currently, Shenzhen ranks first in the world in terms of 5G industry scale, 5G base stations and terminal shipments.

As the pioneer of 5G construction in China, Shanghai was not to be outdone and immediately announced that it had become the city with the most 5G base stations deployed in China. As of the end of July, Shanghai had built more than 25,000 5G outdoor base stations and more than 31,000 5G indoor small stations.

Recently, China Mobile released the results of a comprehensive 5G network evaluation of key urban areas across the country. Qingdao ranked first in the list of "China Mobile's Top Ten Excellent 5G Network Cities Nationwide", which also means that Qingdao's 5G network construction scale and network quality are leading the country. As of the end of July this year, Qingdao Mobile has built and opened 5,716 5G sites, taking the lead in completing the continuous coverage of all urban 5G premium networks.

In my opinion, the race to be the first city is a good thing, as it shows that local governments attach great importance to new infrastructure and 5G. However, the first city to be the first 5G city cannot simply compete in terms of network scale, but also in terms of applications and ecology.

“First” is not just a competition of network size

In terms of applications, 5G has opened a new chapter for 2B. The combination of 5G and various 2B industries is not only an important part of the new infrastructure, but also one of the key technologies for the development of the future digital economy. According to forecasts made by GSMA and Ericsson, the value of the entire 2B end should be 1.3 trillion US dollars in 2026.

In terms of 2B exploration, 5G has been implemented in ports, mining areas, media, transportation, monitoring, education, Industry 4.0 and other fields.

For example, Qingdao Mobile integrates the use of new technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and industrial Internet to continuously enrich 5G application scenarios. It has currently established strategic cooperation with more than 30 leading companies in the industry, including Haier, Hisense, Shandong Port Qingdao Port, Shandong Gold Laixi Gold Mine, and Qingdao Bank, to create demonstration applications such as 5G smart manufacturing, 5G+8K ultra-high-definition video, 5G smart ports, 5G smart mines, and 5G smart banks.

"Although enterprise-level and industry-level 5G applications are very important and we have spent a lot of effort on them, in fact, consumer-level 5G applications are very important." GSMA senior advisor Wang Jianzhou emphasized that the large-scale construction of 5G networks by operators will achieve large coverage and large capacity. In order to give full play to the performance of 5G networks, industry applications alone are not enough. Only massive consumer-level 5G applications can better play the role of 5G networks.

Not long ago, Shenzhen issued the "Several Measures of Shenzhen to Further Stimulate Consumption Vitality and Promote Consumption Growth", which clearly stated that it would jointly implement the home appliance "old for new" and smart product subsidy plans with manufacturers and home appliance sales companies, encourage home appliance companies to issue consumer coupons, and provide subsidies of 10% of the actual purchase price for consumers' new purchases of smart digital products and energy-saving home appliances such as laptops, tablets, 5G mobile phones, 4K and 8K TVs, with a maximum subsidy of 1,000 yuan per resident.

In this regard, Yang Guang, a senior analyst in the field of wireless communications at SA, said in an interview with c114 that the measure introduced by the Shenzhen government will speed up the "real" popularization of 5G. "Previously, many local governments have introduced policies to subsidize the construction of 5G networks, but after the network is built, there must be users. The number of 5G users of the three major operators now generally refers to users who have subscribed to 5G packages, and these users are not necessarily using 5G mobile phones." Yang, a senior analyst in the field of wireless communications at SA, said.

“First City” needs more policy support

The investment and operation costs of 5G are significantly higher than those of 4G. As the equipment is not mature enough at present, large-scale deployment will require a lot of equipment optimization and replacement costs in the future. On the other hand, the profit model of 5G is not clear yet. There is no strong "killer" application on the 2C side. Although some solutions have been implemented on the 2B side, the scale promotion and business model are still unclear.

As the main investor, operators are under great pressure and are now promoting targeted investment. The "first city" needs more policy support.

Wang Xiaochu, Chairman of China Unicom, suggested that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology guide the production, operation and other resources of terminals and IoT modules to migrate to 5G, quickly lower the price of 5G terminals, drive the construction of the 5G industrial chain, and boost confidence in 5G.

In addition, Zhang Yunyong, general manager of China Unicom's product center, said that in the future, the number of 5G base stations will be at least twice that of 4G. With the steady progress of 5G network construction, the long-term problems of difficult site selection and construction faced by operators will become more prominent. To help operators solve the construction difficulties, the country should incorporate 5G network construction planning into urban and rural planning, and synchronize planning, construction, and acceptance with urban and rural construction.

In order to further promote the construction of 5G networks, Zhang Yunyong believes that we should increase our awareness of the importance of information infrastructure and regard the acceptance of information infrastructure as a key link in the acceptance of urban and rural construction projects; it is recommended to standardize the entry behavior of network facilities and increase the protection of network facilities; it is recommended to strengthen public opinion guidance and eliminate the public's one-sided understanding of 5G electromagnetic radiation.

According to forecasts, 80% of 5G application scenarios in the future will be in the industrial field. 5G will greatly promote the transformation of the existing connection mode of the industrial Internet. Its speed, capacity, anti-interference, low latency and other characteristics are very suitable for industrial scenarios. 5G will be a technical means to help them connect to the Internet quickly and at a low cost, and can solve the problem of "information islands".

In this regard, the government and relevant departments should speed up the formulation of an open and unified industrial equipment communication standard system, and overcome the technical difficulties of network interconnection technology within the factory and the intercommunication between heterogeneous protocol data as soon as possible. In addition, relevant departments need to accelerate the promotion and implementation of 5G industrial modules, network facilities and supporting applications in the industrial field, provide special 5G financial and tax support for industrial enterprises in the jurisdiction, establish 5G innovative industrial demonstration parks, play a demonstration effect, accelerate the construction of 5G network environment for industrial enterprises, and encourage enterprises to transfer equipment to the network.

Only with adequate policy support can operators further increase their targeted investment and promote faster and better development of 5G.