Five things you need to know about the current state of 5G

5G is a rare combination of national will and market demand. 5G has been repeatedly mentioned in various government documents, which was not seen in the previous 4G and 3G eras.

The CTIA U.S. Wireless Communications and Internet Association released a 5G industry map this year. China is currently ranked first in the world in the 5G industry, and is in the first echelon with South Korea, the United States and Japan.

From the perspective of various segments:

Number of base stations:

As of October, the number of 5G base stations in my country has reached nearly 100,000, about ten times that of the United States.

However, we cannot underestimate South Korea in terms of 5G. South Korea is actually very advanced in the 5G field. In terms of the number of base stations, it is currently similar to China, but by the end of the year, South Korea will reach the world's first number of 230,000, covering the entire country.

Why does South Korea have to do this? Because South Korea hopes to lead the mobile phone industry chain, not just the mobile phone terminal. South Korea is developing 5G to drive the mobile phone industry chain including storage and other sub-sectors to continue to lead the world.

Another big ambition is to develop Samsung into a global equipment supplier. Of course, Huawei is still in an absolute leading position. But Samsung is indeed a very powerful force, having shipped 50,000 base stations, which is lower than Huawei and about the same as ZTE, which is tied for second and third place.

Most European countries do not seem to be in a hurry. The reason is that their operators are private enterprises. There are hundreds of operators in Europe, and they have spent billions to buy frequency bands. Even large operators can hardly bear it. European operators mainly consider profits and returns on investment, with the focus on corporate effects rather than social effects.

The current version of 4G can actually meet the needs of users. From the perspective of return on investment alone, there is no rush to build 5G. If the European government does not work hard, it will be left behind by the four countries in the first echelon.

Rates:

Various packages around the world are basically at the level of RMB 300 or 400 per month.

China Unicom revealed that during the transition period, the lowest 5G package price is 190 yuan per month, and the cheapest rates of several other companies are similar. Compared with most people's 4G packages, 5G packages are indeed not cheap.

Although China's communication charges are already very cheap compared to foreign countries, the 200 yuan package fee will indeed prevent many consumers from purchasing 5G.

Looking back at the early days of 4G, the relatively cheap package fee was more than 200 yuan, but later it gradually dropped to below 100 yuan, so it is not impossible for 5G charges to drop. However, due to the recent general profitability of operators, the pace of fee reduction may slow down.

Base station equipment vendors:

Domestic equipment manufacturers already have a clear leading advantage.

Huawei is far ahead in the world, with 500,000 units shipped this year, followed by ZTE, which has 50,000 units, and Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia. It can be seen that China has a great advantage in 5G.

Mobile terminal:

Since the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued 5G commercial licenses in early June, in just over two months, the first batch of 5G mobile phones have been on the market.

In addition to Huawei, 5G mobile phones from multiple brands including ZTE and vivo have also been launched on the market.

Judging from the current pricing of 5G mobile phones from various brands, they are far lower than the market's previous expectation that "5G mobile phones will cost over 10,000 yuan."

5G mobile phones are already out, but objectively speaking, there is no need to buy one this year because the network has not been built yet and the effect of using it will not be very ideal. Those who want to be the first to try it can buy it next year.

5G operators:

The three major domestic operators are currently actively promoting the commercialization of 5G and have determined detailed implementation plans, striving to achieve commercialization of 5G networks in 2020.

From the perspective of return on investment, operators do not have strong motivation, but the government is pushing for it. For example, the Shenzhen government said it would optimize the direction of funds to focus on supporting the development of 5G, and give a reward of 10,000 yuan for each base station built in an independent networking mode, with a maximum reward of 150 million yuan for a single telecom operator. 5G can be said to be a manifestation of the combination of market economy and national will.

The operators are moving faster than everyone originally thought. China Mobile previously planned to build 10,000 base stations by 2020, but now it looks like China Mobile will have at least 200,000 base stations by 2020, and may even reach 400,000, which is dozens of times more than expected. The speed is astonishing.

Of course, if we want to quickly popularize 5G, we still need unremitting efforts from the entire industry in many aspects such as standard setting, chip design, hardware production, system integration, equipment deployment and service operation, but such a future is not far away.