Network | 5G secrets that operators don’t want to tell

On November 1, several major domestic operators officially launched 5G tariff packages: the lowest monthly package starts at 128 yuan and the highest is 869 yuan, which also marks that China's 5G communication services have truly entered the era of universal commercial use. Many people who are eager to try out 5G mobile phones and apply for related packages as soon as possible to experience the legendary ultra-fast 5G network. It is reported that as of now, the total number of 5G commercial users of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom has exceeded 10 million.

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However, while everyone is excited, there are some things about 5G that you must know. These are "secrets" that operators are reluctant to say, don't want to say, or find ways to say them. Knowing these things won't make your mobile Internet access faster or your monthly bills lower, but it will make you reconsider whether you need to join the 5G trend immediately or wait and see for a while.

5G is fast, but it takes only 4 minutes to use up all the data in your plan

As we all know, the speed of 5G is more than 10 times that of 4G. What does 10 times mean? At present, in the on-site network speed test of the operator's business hall, we can see that the general download speed is around 700~1000Mbps, while correspondingly, the 4G network speed in the same area is about 20~100Mbps, and the difference is indeed obvious.

Perhaps fearing that consumers may not understand the concept of gigabit Internet speed, some staff will explain that, for example, if you want to download a TV series or other applications, you can download a TV series in a few minutes without having to wait for a long time.

But what if we can be more specific? Taking the lowest-end 5G package of the three major operators as an example, the free traffic included in it is 30GB, which is used up in 4 minutes at the peak 5G rate of 1Gbps! After that, an additional 3 to 5 yuan will be charged for every 1GB of traffic.

Another test data for reference shows that when the technology media used Speedtest to test the mate20X 5G version of 5G for ten seconds, a total of 1.2GB of traffic was consumed! In other words, 30G of free traffic cannot sustain such high-intensity speed testing for a few minutes.

Some consumers complained that 5G charges are too expensive, but this is a bit wrong to blame the operators. The average unit price of data charges has been declining, and the 30GB of free data included in the 5G package can also meet the daily expenses of most users, provided that people do not use 5G to show off, constantly test the speed to show off, or download all the resources of the movies and TV series they have seen before watching them, but in fact they can only watch a few episodes.

5G base stations are "power hogs" . The more they are built, the more losses they will suffer.

Recently, a saying has been circulating in the investment community. When commenting on the beneficiaries of the 5G industry acceleration, a securities firm mentioned in its research report that "the biggest winner of 5G may be the State Grid." What does this mean?

According to data from the China Communications Standards Association, the current no-load power consumption of operators' 5G base station main equipment samples is about 2.2 kW to 2.3 kW, and the full-load power consumption is about 3.7 kW to 3.9 kW. The power consumption of a single 5G base station is 2.5 to 3.5 times that of a single 4G base station!

On the other hand, although 5G has a higher network transmission rate than 4G, the coverage of 5G network signals is much lower than that of 4G network signals because the signal frequency used by 5G networks is higher, and the penetration rate of 5G network signals is even worse than that of 4G network signals. This requires that if 5G networks want to reach the signal rate of 4G networks, the number of 5G base stations must be doubled.

According to experts' estimates, if the coverage of 4G network signals is to be achieved, the number of 5G base stations to be built will conservatively exceed 10 million. In other words, based on China's population of 1.4 billion, there will be one 5G base station for every 140 people.

According to experts' estimates based on typical electricity prices, the annual electricity cost of a 5G standard base station will reach 20,000 to 30,000 yuan. Based on the calculation that all new base stations are put into use in 2019, the annual electricity cost of the three major operators for 5G operations will reach about 2 billion to 4.5 billion yuan. As the number of 5G base stations continues to increase, the pressure of rising electricity costs will continue to increase.

In response to the high power consumption of 5G equipment, China Tower has stated that it is working with manufacturers to promote innovation in 5G energy solutions, accelerate the formation of new standards, and reduce investment in power expansion and transformation. But before that, if you are eager to build more 5G base stations to ensure better 5G network coverage, you will have to continue to bear the soaring electricity bills.

The problem of "difficult entry" for base stations is difficult to solve, and the same is true for 5G

Commercial and residential communities everywhere have resisted the deployment of operators' communication base stations on the grounds of "worrying about radiation." Even if they are willing to accept, most of them require operators to pay a certain "entry fee," "site fee," and "coordination fee." These are not news. This situation still hinders the 5G process to a certain extent in the 5G era.

Recently, there were media reports that some residential property management companies charged sky-high "coordination fees" for the construction of 5G base stations by operators. The report said that the cost of building a 5G macro base station is 500,000 to 600,000 yuan, and more than one-third of it is paid to the property management company as "coordination fees." Some communities even asked for a sky-high entry fee of 300,000 yuan, which is more than half of the cost of building a base station. Some industry insiders also said that for large communities, 300,000 yuan in coordination fees is not much, because the entrance fees of some university campuses have reached 500,000 yuan or even 800,000 yuan. After all, 5G construction is bound to involve the interests of many parties.

In addition, an insider of China Tower once revealed to the media that the difficulty in approving the use of social resources is also a worry. In some places, the use of social pipeline resources, road resources, bridge resources, track resources, railway resources, public land resources and other resources is still difficult, the approval procedures are cumbersome, and the conditions for the use of resources are too harsh. There are even some companies that, under the banner of 5G construction, purchase and seize resources in advance, intending to monopolize resources as a means of rent-seeking and profit-making in the future, further raising the cost of the communications industry to use social resources.