"Electricity and telecommunications cooperation" to build 5G is a new interpretation of "speeding up and reducing fees"

"It used to cost 100 yuan for one person to eat a meal, but now two people eat together and the total cost is only 120 yuan, so each person saves 40 yuan."

Speed ​​up, increase the speed of 5G network construction; reduce fees, reduce investment costs. It is reported that the two operators will be able to save 200 billion yuan in 5G construction investment in the next five years, and a large part of this money will undoubtedly be spent on "reducing fees" for ordinary people and enterprises.

On June 6, domestic 5G licenses were officially issued, and my country officially opened the door to 5G commercial use; on September 9, another major event occurred in the domestic 5G field. With the announcement released by China Unicom that evening, "Unicom and Telecom cooperate to build 5G" has turned from a rumor into reality, creating a precedent for domestic operators to deeply and large-scale cooperate in network construction, and it also has a clear benchmark role for the global communications industry.

According to a reporter from IT Times, in the early days of the 4G era, China Telecom and China Unicom once joined hands to jointly build 4G networks on a small scale. The two parties shared the access network and the core network was independent. However, compared with the current cooperation between the two parties on 5G, the intensity and momentum were far less. Moreover, because the 5G frequency bands of China Telecom and China Unicom are closely linked, frequency sharing will help expand bandwidth and improve spectrum efficiency, allowing users of both parties to experience the world's fastest 5G network.

As soon as the words fell, the "boot" landed

This time, China Unicom and China Telecom acted very quickly.

At China Unicom's interim results conference held on August 14 this year, China Unicom Chairman Wang Xiaochu revealed that Unicom may not carry out 5G construction in all places in the future, and said that China Unicom is seeking cooperation with China Telecom and China Mobile.

In summary, China Unicom is seeking two types of cooperation: one is to cooperate with China Telecom to build a network, jointly build 5G, and maintain and operate it separately; the other is to lease a 5G network from China Mobile. China Unicom will give priority to key areas and areas with large traffic flow to cover 5G, and allow Unicom users in other areas to use 5G services through China Mobile roaming.

China Unicom is very confident this time. Wang Xiaochu said at the earnings conference: "The government encourages operators to build and share resources together because the investment in 5G is very large. China Unicom will definitely participate in one or more cooperations this time."

China Unicom's idea of ​​jointly building a 5G network has received a positive response from China Telecom. Also at the mid-term results conference, China Telecom Chairman Ke Ruiwen said that China Telecom has always been an advocate and promoter of joint construction and sharing, and is currently focusing on joint construction and sharing with China Unicom.

Now, only one month after the two operators’ leaders spoke out on 5G co-construction and sharing, the two sides announced that they have officially reached a cooperation.

According to the cooperation content, China Telecom and China Unicom will jointly build a 5G access network, and each will build a 5G core network, service bearer network and various service platforms, forming "one physical network and two logical networks", and each will have a complete 5G network that can be managed and controlled end to end. Both parties maintain brand independence, and users do not need to change cards or numbers, and adhere to the "three unchanged" principle, that is, user ownership remains unchanged, service interface remains unchanged, and service perception remains unchanged.

Save money and speed up

China Telecom and China Unicom have decided to cooperate in building 5G networks for two purposes: first, to significantly reduce 5G investment; second, to significantly increase the coverage speed of 5G networks.

Judging from the content of the cooperation between the two parties, China Telecom and China Unicom jointly build the wireless access network, but maintain their independence at the core network level. In the overall investment cost of 5G, the wireless access network accounts for the "largest part".

At the China Telecom 5G Innovation and Cooperation Conference held in April this year, Wei Leping, Executive Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated that the cost of wireless access networks accounts for more than half of the total 5G cost.

This was also indicated in the news released by China Telecom. China Telecom stated that the investment in 5G network construction and operation will be greater than that of previous generations of networks, of which the investment in wireless access accounts for nearly 80% of the total investment. Co-construction and sharing is an effective way to save investment and make full use of resources, which will greatly reduce the cost of network construction and operation.

"The biggest benefit is that it reduces investment," an operator insider told reporters. "The bulk of 5G investment is at the access network level. For example, where I live, it only costs tens of millions, but the investment in the wireless access network is more than 100 or even 200 million yuan. It's like, originally one person would spend 100 yuan on a meal, but now two people eat together and only spend 120 yuan in total, so each person saves 40 yuan."

It is reported that according to Wang Xiaochu's previous speech at the semi-annual performance conference, China Unicom and China Telecom's joint construction and sharing can save both parties 200 billion yuan in capital expenditure during the five-year 5G construction cycle.

In addition to significantly reducing investment, another major benefit brought about by the cooperation between the two sides in building 5G is that the speed of 5G network construction will undoubtedly be greatly accelerated, which will greatly help enhance the competitiveness of both sides in the early stages of 5G.

In the early days of the 4G era, China Mobile quickly established a leading advantage by building a large number of base stations and laying out 4G networks, laying the foundation for its dominant position in the 4G era. For example, in 2015, China Mobile's 4G users accounted for more than 80% of the country's 4G users.

In the early days of the 5G era, this situation should not happen again. With the cooperation of China Telecom and China Unicom, their 5G network coverage speed will undoubtedly be greatly accelerated, which also means that competition in the early days of 5G will be more intense.

The 4G era has joined forces

"In fact, in the early days of 4G, China Telecom and China Unicom had already cooperated in network construction." A technical expert engaged in network construction within the operator told reporters.

In 2015 and 2016, China Telecom and China Unicom launched extensive cooperation, the most notable of which was the joint efforts of the two parties to promote the popularization and promotion of six-mode all-network mobile terminals. In fact, the two parties also cooperated in network construction at that time, thereby accelerating network coverage and improving network service capabilities.

"At that time, the core network was also independent, and the two sides jointly built and shared the access network. In the areas of joint construction, China Unicom's base stations supported China Telecom users' access, and China Telecom base stations also supported China Unicom users' access." The technical expert said. At that time, China Telecom or China Unicom did not cooperate with China Mobile. One of the reasons was that the two sides had different 4G network standards, and China Telecom and China Unicom both had FDD standards.

"Later, with the in-depth development of 4G, there was very little cooperation between China Telecom and China Unicom. However, the two sides still cooperated in some special occasions. For example, one company built the network first, but later conditions did not allow the other operator to build it, so they adopted a cooperative approach," the person said.

This time, China Telecom and China Unicom are jointly building and sharing 5G. The basic conditions are more suitable than in the 4G era. Both parties adopt the same 5G technology standard, and the 5G frequencies are adjacent, which have the natural prerequisites for joint construction and sharing, thereby greatly reducing duplicate construction and improving resource efficiency.

In the early days of 4G, China Telecom and China Unicom mainly adopted the independent carrier sharing mode of cooperation. Telecom and Unicom each had independent spectrum resources and only shared the hardware resources of eNodeB (the name of base station in LTE), that is, physical equipment was shared, and the internal logic was independent. "For example, a base station gives 20M bandwidth to Unicom and 20M bandwidth to Telecom, and this is how it is allocated," said the above technician.

This time is different. China Telecom has 3.4GHz-3.5GHz spectrum resources, and China Unicom has 3.5GHz-3.6GHz spectrum resources. The 5G frequency band resources of both parties are closely adjacent. If the two parties share, it means that the available spectrum resources will be doubled. In terms of expanding spectrum bandwidth and improving spectrum efficiency, the benefits are self-evident. This means that users of both parties will experience the world's fastest 5G network by sharing bandwidth.