In the 5G era, how to innovate network construction models?

The full opening of the 5G commercial era and the substantial increase in data traffic, number of base stations, and network speed will bring about qualitative changes in the communications construction industry.

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Is it still feasible for telecom operators to be responsible for the end-to-end division of labor in the mobile communications industry chain? Does the construction model of mobile communications networks need fundamental changes? How to break the construction cost deadlock, promote the rapid implementation of 5G networks and support the transformation and upgrading of the national economy? These have become the focus of attention in the industry.

The traditional access network construction model is no longer sustainable

The continuous evolution of technology and changes in the market environment mean that the traditional access network construction model is no longer sustainable.

First, in the field of local networks and wireless access networks, telecom operators and related units are in a weak position compared to property owners, and the communication process is very complicated. Sometimes even the regulatory authorities need to intervene. Deployment in business parks, subways, office buildings, communities, etc. requires the consent of the owners, who have to pay high entry fees. In some communities, the entry fee (coordination fee) is as high as 500,000 to 600,000 yuan. In fact, a large part of the benefits go to property management personnel rather than the owners' committee, and there are regulatory loopholes.

The long communication chain and complex interest groups have led to widespread delays in construction progress, hindering the coverage of communication signals, and putting operators in a passive position. Once there is no signal, citizens will initiate industry complaints and blind spot complaints, presenting a contradictory phenomenon of both requiring communication facility coverage and charging the construction party.

In order to optimize wireless networks and increase coverage, telecom operators have increased horizontal industry cooperation and expanded site resources horizontally to industry partners. For example, they have cooperated with power grid companies and power supply companies to utilize power towers and power poles to share towers, which also solved the problem of power supply for base stations. They have cooperated with street light management departments to build smart light poles and use street light poles to build base station antennas. They have cooperated with parks and municipal greening to build base station bionic trees. They have built air-conditioning-like outdoor unit antennas above buildings... In order to optimize network coverage and achieve speed increases and fee reductions, communications industry staff, including operator project managers, designers, communications engineering construction personnel, and supervisors have made arduous efforts.

The era of IoT integration has arrived

With the advancement of the Internet of Things, broadband, automation, and intelligence, all fixed or mobile objects such as buildings, structures, municipal public facilities, and transportation vehicles are increasingly showing a trend of integrating the "objects" of the real world with the "network" of the digital world. Grasping this trend can, on the one hand, improve the depth and breadth of network coverage, and on the other hand, accelerate the transformation of production and lifestyles and improve the efficiency of social operation. It is specifically reflected in the integration of communication networks and the physical world, the integration of the Internet and the physical world, and the integration of the Internet of Things and the physical world. The concept of "integration of objects and networks" means that, in a broad sense, objects serve as both information terminals for connection and interfaces of the network, and can also undertake certain operation execution instructions. It has three forms of presentation: simplex perception network, i.e. authentication sensing, reading of object tag information, such as FRID, electronic tags, and metal sensing lines; simplex execution network, which is more common in analog networks before digital networks, and the equipment is only executed; duplex information interaction network, which can directly transmit information to each other, usually using WLAN, Bluetooth, zigbee, Lora, NB-IoT, etc. The Internet of Things integration described in this article includes the above three in a broad sense. In a narrow sense, it mainly refers to a duplex information interaction network, where objects can directly exchange information locally or through a wide area network. At the same time, a network proxy information transmission channel can be formed between objects.

The development direction of the integration of the Internet of Things is to deploy network facilities and network terminals inside commodities and items during the manufacturing stage. With the development of smart homes and smart infrastructure equipment, all active and passive components of buildings, home appliances, electrical equipment, and public facilities should have antenna functions in addition to network interfaces, such as all doors and windows, elevators, tables and chairs, lamps, air conditioners, etc. All mobile terminal devices can access the network anytime and anywhere. Under the general trend of the integration of the Internet of Things, current construction projects and network construction are actually relatively independent and separate. We have to think about and learn from the practices of other public utility industries.

Innovation in 5G access network construction model

To sum up, a new construction model has emerged under the 5G technology environment. Base stations and buildings have been tightly coupled together to form an embedded relationship, so the construction model must also be innovated.

Division of labor interface: division based on property rights interface

Operators should focus their main efforts and construction investment on the construction of backbone networks, metropolitan area networks, core computer rooms, urban optical cable pipelines, etc., and concentrate on improving network services and business innovation. The division of labor interface should be located at the optical cross-connection boxes of urban main roads and branches. The above optical cable routing part is completed by telecom operators, and the following part is built by developers and owners. Base stations should be built according to the characteristics of "whoever builds, whoever benefits". Strengthen indoor coverage and short-distance coverage, and the transmission power can be adjusted to be smaller than the current coverage mode to further reduce electromagnetic radiation (in fact, the electromagnetic radiation under the current construction mode is far less than the national standard requirements). In administrative management areas such as urban roads, narrow strips, and urban public places, the government provides site resources for operators to build. This can reduce the cost of 5G construction by more than half, and further promote telecom operators to increase speed and reduce fees. In this way, the property rights interface is also clear. Whoever builds, whoever owns, is responsible for management and maintenance.

Binding with the entire life cycle of the building: realizing the information-based building model

This kind of innovation should be considered in the whole life cycle of the building, and should be bound to the property owner in the planning, design, construction and maintenance stages. In the planning stage, whether the land use right is allocated or obtained through auction, it should be accompanied by the supporting construction requirements of network facilities, as it is now; in the design stage, the construction drawings and decoration drawings should reserve the location of small base stations, indoor distribution, and outdoor base station antennas, and do a good job of landscaping and reinforcement design. This design method is obviously safer and more environmentally friendly than breaking ground and digging holes after the building is completed and delivered for use. It is also convenient for wireless equipment vendors to provide integrated solutions based on the community environment, and integrate the community's security, access control, Internet of Things sensing equipment, data collection, etc. into the local network system; in the implementation stage, it is completed by the general contractor of the construction party, or completed by the communication engineering company through professional subcontracting, and connected with the communication operator's resident network optical cable handover box to achieve network access; in the maintenance stage, the equipment supplier and the construction party are responsible for maintenance during the defect liability period, and the construction party and the third-party maintenance company will be responsible for maintenance under the property demand in the future.

In the 3G and 4G era, operators have basically achieved the co-construction and sharing of site resources, base station space and power supply, and antenna resources, but have not achieved equipment-level sharing. Under the above-mentioned model of IoT integration, multiple telecom operators can access the same regional network and share access network equipment resources, fully achieving the co-construction and sharing of local network and wireless access network equipment.

Stimulate private capital: The last mile is handed over to private capital

Wireless communication, WLAN and other facilities can provide public network services due to the characteristics of signal propagation, that is, the critical income adopts a third-party paid service model. In order to increase the enthusiasm of property units to provide supporting communication infrastructure for buildings, if the equipment of the builder is provided to other property units or individuals, a charging model can be adopted, and paid traffic or access time services can be provided through authentication and certification. The generated income is settled in real time to the property account and settled uniformly by the operator. If the owner is unwilling to share resources, it can be achieved by adjusting the base station parameters in the implementation stage. It is a strategy to promote the sustainable development of the communications industry to drive private capital to invest in 5G access network infrastructure through interest adjustment.

In short, economic transformation and development requires new growth drivers, and the communications industry also needs constant change. The current 5G investment model is not driven by market demand but mostly by policy, so reverse thinking is needed to change the construction model in order to accelerate 5G network construction. After 5G networks penetrate into all walks of life, they will promote new business innovation models. Only when the industry becomes active can the demand for network construction be further promoted, enabling the communications industry to enter a track of sustained growth and development.