Actual measurement: The truth about 5G high-speed downloading: monopoly, speed limit and lies

On June 6, 2019, the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Information Technology officially issued a 5G commercial license to China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Broadcasting Corporation respectively.

With the issuance of licenses, Mr. He’s 5G test video became popular soon, and Zhidongxi’s test article also flooded my circle of friends.

I thought 5G was already a popular product at this point, but after searching JD.com and logging into China Unicom's official website, I found that the 12,000 yuan 5G package still restricts the popularization of China's 5G personal consumer market.

Behind the purchase restrictions on 5G mobile phones, ordinary people can only sigh “this is 5G” in some media reviews.

However, after fully understanding the testing process and results of Mr. He and Zhidongxi, we fell into a "panic contradiction" when faced with the download speeds of 80MB/s and 34MB/s respectively obtained in the tests.

Because not long ago, a 5G technical engineer from China Mobile told us: There are currently no 5G SIM cards on the market. All SIM cards that can receive 5G signals come from 4G cards. The reason they can log on to the 5G network is that the operator has opened a 5G service permission for this 4G SIM card.

Therefore, according to the technician's introduction: Zhidongxi and He Tongxue both used the same 4G to 5G SIM card, but both measured a 5G network speed error of nearly 2.5 times at the Xicheng District campus of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

So, with a keen interest in 5G, the editor borrowed two Korean 5G mobile phones from a friend and embarked on the journey of seeking the truth about 5G in Beijing.

And because of the unintentional foreshadowing of South Korea's 5G mobile phone, the following facts were accidentally discovered:

1. Currently, the 5G tested by domestic media has limited speed. We only use 4G to basically catch up with Zhidongxi's 5G network speed;

2. According to the staff of the three major operators’ business halls, there is no real 5G in Beijing;

3. Through various tests with Korean 5G mobile phones, we found that the three major domestic operators have "technical" monopolized the 5G mobile phone market. The price of a mobile phone behind the 5G concept is 8,000 yuan different from that in Korea;

4. 5G is competing for ecology, not profits. Don’t let short-sightedness ruin 5G.

1. Look for 5G and explore 4G

On June 13, 2019, Zhidongxi published an article about 5G network speed test on the entire network. In the article, Zhidongxi mentioned that they once measured a download speed of 273Mbps (34.12MB/s) under 5G network speed in front of the main building of the Xicheng District campus of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications using a 4G SIM card and a ZTE Axon 5G mobile phone.

When the editor learned the "fact" that 4G SIM cards can also use 5G, we commissioned a friend to purchase two Korean 5G mobile phones from a third-party channel. With the question of "whether Korean 5G mobile phones can use domestic 5G", we embarked on the road of retesting He Tongxue and Zhidongxi's "5G experiment".

In order to better verify the difference between 5G and 4G, in addition to the Samsung S10 5G version and the LG V50 5G version, we and our colleagues also gathered three 4G mobile phones: Samsung S10+, Apple XR and Huawei P20PRO.

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First, let's test the 5G mobile phone. According to Zhidongxi, when a 4G SIM card is inserted into a ZTE 5G mobile phone using Qualcomm's X50 baseband, the noble 5G logo will be displayed when entering Beiyou. However, when holding an LG V50 using the same X50 baseband and walking around the Xicheng District campus of Beiyou, the 5G logo did not appear once.

Along with LG, the Samsung S10 5G version also failed. After using the same 4G card introduced in the Zhidongxi article, the two 5G phones experienced "acclimatization" failures, and their tested network speed was only 18MB/s.

Based on actual testing using my daily 4G card in front of the main building of the Xicheng District campus of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

The comprehensive test results of 5 mobile phones using Speedtest are as follows:

The 4G version of Samsung S10+ won the fastest network speed on the scene with a score of 26.2MB/s, followed by Huawei P20pro 21MB/s (forgive us for not finding P30), Samsung S10 5G version 18MB/s, Apple XR and LG V50 5G version.

When we got the initial results, we were also quite shocked, because the device closest to Zhidongxi's 5G network speed test (34.12MB/s) was not two 5G mobile phones, but a 4G version of Samsung S10+ (26.2MB/s).

In this process, the network speed of a Samsung S10+ 4G mobile phone can reach 26.2MB/s. Although it is still far from He's 80MB/s, the result has reached 76.7% of the 5G network speed (34.12MB/s) tested by Zhidongxi at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications using a 5G mobile phone.

It is easy to drag 1080P videos, download music in seconds, and play games with zero delay in network speed. This speed is 6-8 times faster than our current ordinary 4G network speed.

However, I also strangely noticed that when the Samsung S10+ reached a download speed of more than 20MB/s, it did not use the daily 4G, but a 4G+ symbol.

In this regard, we learned through public information that 4G+ is a new concept proposed by China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom after they fully entered the 4G era on December 26, 2017.

4G+ is a technical upgrade of the 4G network. It is based on the 4G base station hardware and software upgrade to achieve the improvement of network speed. While 4G+ is still 4G, it directly increases the 4G network speed limit by 3-4 times.

According to the 4G theoretical peak value of 8MB/s, the 26.2MB/s measured by Samsung S10+ is indeed within the 4G+ (8MB/s-32MB/s) range, while Zhidongxi's network speed of 34.12MB/s has exceeded 4G+ and is within the 5G network speed range.

We initially attributed the failure of the two Korean 5G mobile phones to the temporary closure of the 5G base station at the Xitucheng Campus of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

So, in order to find 5G, we visited several 5G signal coverage areas such as Andeli North Street Metro Station, Financial Street and Sanlitun according to the 5G map of China Unicom APP, but the unfortunate thing is: the two Korean versions of 5G mobile phones just don’t have 5G.

Therefore, the same 4G card, and the LG V50, which is equipped with the same Qualcomm X50 baseband as the ZTE Axon, were measured near the same location, but the results were completely different from those of He Tongxue and Zhidongxi.

What are the deviations that affect the network speed results? Where is the noble 5G mentioned by Mr. He hidden? How do ordinary people experience 5G?

With these questions that 5G consumers should not have, the editor uncovered a "new story" about 5G "monopoly" from China Unicom's Financial Street Business Hall.

The truth about 2.5G: speed limits, experiments, and limits

When going to the Financial Street, Wuju Research actually had two goals: one was to find 5G, and the other was to visit the 5G booth in China Unicom's financial business hall.

In fact, these two purposes can be verified together by simply walking into the China Unicom business hall in Financial Street:

Because, at the entrance of the business hall, there are already 5G mobile phones connected to the 5G network. The clerk confirmed that they all use 4G SIM cards and that 5G is indeed covered here. After repeated confirmation of the network connection mode of two Korean 5G mobile phones, both phones showed that they could only receive 4G signals.

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However, during further inspection, a strange scene was discovered with five 5G mobile phones in China Unicom Financial Street Business Hall:

In the same area, the network speeds of five mobile phones that can access the 5G network vary from 15MB/s for OPPO Reno to 70MB/s for Huawei Mate 20X. Even the 5G test speed of vivo Nex, which uses the same processor and baseband as OPPO Reno, is around 60MB/s.

We tried to get the consent of the staff in the business hall to put the 5G mobile phone SIM card on the display stand into our Korean version of 5G mobile phone to try the 5G connection, but this plan was rejected by the manager of the China Unicom business hall.

In the spirit of truth-seeking, we still replaced the SIM card before seeking their consent. Although it took less than a minute to replace the SIM card at the booth with our Korean version of 5G mobile phone, we can be absolutely sure that the Korean version of 5G mobile phone still cannot access 5G.

With many questions about 5G, the editor tried to find answers in the China Unicom business hall.

However, because China Unicom's Financial Street Business Hall was not staffed with technical personnel that day, and the front desk staff's explanation only stopped at the level of: "These 5G machines are modulated by the manufacturer, and the fluctuations may be caused by unstable 5G signals", the editor interviewed China Mobile's 5G network technology engineer with new questions about 5G.

According to the technical engineer:

Because the construction of 5G base stations in recent years will be carried out in a non-independent networking (NSA) mode, in simple terms, the 5G supersonic highway will be built on the 4G highway. Therefore, for a long time in the future, 5G mobile phones will use 4G mobile phone cards. This is why Zhidongxi and He Tongxue can use 4G SIM cards to use the 5G network.

However, under the premise of having the same 4G card and 5G mobile phone, the measured network speed will differ by 4 times. This is because the 5G services currently open to individuals and media by the three major operators are all subject to speed limits. Based on the different modulation of the speed limit on the mobile phone card, there is a difference of 34.12MB/s measured by Zhidongxi and 80MB/s measured by He (the same applies to the differences among the five mobile phones in China Unicom business hall).

As for the reason for the speed limit, the engineer said:

Currently, there are two types of 5G SIM cards. One is for laboratory use, which completely removes the speed limit and has a maximum speed of over 1.2GB/s. The other is a speed-limited card displayed to the public and the media. We will allow this card to access the 5G network through background authorization.

As for why the unlimited-speed 5G SIM card has not been displayed to the public, China Mobile's technical engineers gave two reasons: one is that the cost is too high, and the other is that there are too few applicable scenarios.

At present, the storage space of mobile phones still remains between 128G and 512G. The full liberation speed of 5G is an "irrational" pursuit regardless of the construction cost of base stations or the current mobile phone hardware. Instead, it is more practical to gradually transition from a speed of 80MB/s.

Because when the speed really reaches 1.2GB per second, there will be more than just mobile phones using 5G networks, and currently the only devices that can use 5G networks are mobile phones.

In fact, according to the joint statement of China Unicom Business Hall and our consultation call 10086: Beijing currently does not have an open 5G network, many 5G base stations are in the debugging stage, and even the 5G mobile phones that can be purchased domestically have not yet been fully sold to the public.

Therefore, although 5G is very popular in the media, ordinary people are still far away from 5G.

3. Invisible "monopoly": 5G phones cannot use 5G

After communicating with China Mobile's technical staff, the issues regarding the difference in 5G network speeds and why 4G SIM cards can access 5G have been resolved, and the previous media's deviation in network speed in 5G tests has been corrected.

But for those of us who spent a day in Beijing in June with two Korean 5G phones, there is still a knot in our hearts: Can Korean 5G phones be used with 5G in China?

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The reason why the editor is concerned about the Korean version of 5G mobile phones is related to the market maturity of Korean 5G mobile phones and the price of Korean version of 5G mobile phones.

According to Korean media reports: South Korea's 5G development is very fast, with more than 270,000 users in the first month and more than 800,000 users in the second month, and currently there are more than 1 million 5G users.

The reason for the surge in the number of 5G users in South Korea, in addition to South Korea's 5G base station construction, is also closely related to the huge subsidies provided by South Korean operators for 5G mobile phones.

Among them, the editor commissioned a friend to bring back LG's V50 5G mobile phone from South Korea. The official price in the Korean market is about US$1,000, but after subsidies from operators, the final price of the phone is only US$500.

Therefore, if you have friends who are studying or traveling in South Korea, you can buy a 5G phone with a Snapdragon 855 processor for 3,500 yuan. The Samsung S10 5G version with a higher configuration can also be bought for 4,500 yuan.

Corresponding to this price, the price of 5G mobile phones in the domestic market is all over 10,000 yuan.

According to a screenshot of the "5G Pioneer Plan" released by Mobile China on April 23, 5G mobile phones from six major brands including Huawei, ZTE, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi Mix3 and Nubia mini5 are priced at 12,800 yuan, 10,800 yuan, 11,800 yuan, 11,800 yuan, 11,800 yuan and 10,800 yuan respectively.

In the official website of ***, these specific prices were blurred by a plan of "5G Pioneer Benefit Package", but its official website still marked the official selling price as high as around 12,000 yuan.

Of course, such pricing is not for ordinary consumers, because the 5G Pioneer Plan on China Unicom’s official website needs to be approved by China Unicom before participation and is a testing activity.

Therefore, the current Korean version of 5G mobile phones should be the best 5G products that ordinary consumers can buy in the global market.

In fact, before I asked a friend to get two Korean 5G mobile phones, I consulted a technician from China Mobile. According to this technician, the current domestic 4G card and 5G card are actually the same card, and the 5G standard is an international consensus, so as long as your mobile phone is 5G full network access, whether you use China Unicom or China Mobile, you can receive the 5G network through the 4G card.

However, our actual test results using the Korean version of 5G mobile phones were completely opposite to what the technician described.

However, when the editor tried to answer the questions through China Mobile's 5G technical engineers, he encountered an "unspeakable" obstacle.

In order to find out the truth, the editor found a communications graduate student who had interned at a well-known mobile phone manufacturer on Zhihu, and found the problem in his answer.

According to the classmate who had "written" 5G signals for the manufacturer's 5G mobile phones, "the six 5G mobile phones currently launched by China Unicom in the 5G priority plan all need to be edited and coded before experience consumption of the mobile phones, so that the 5G SIM card signal can be connected to this 5G mobile phone."

To put it simply, each 5G mobile phone is bound to a 5G SIM card with an account and password.

Therefore, the Korean version of 5G mobile phones do not have passes from the three major domestic operators and available 5G hardware accounts. Even if you have a 5G SIM card, you still cannot use the domestic 5G network.

If there were no such restriction, I think we would have found the noble symbol of 5G on LG and Samsung's 5G mobile phones.

However, at present, domestic 5G mobile phones are not fully available for sale, and SIM cards that upgrade from 4G to 5G are only available to a small number of geek players among the media and technology enthusiasts. Therefore, according to this student majoring in communications, when 5G is fully open and 5G mobile phones are fully available for sale, Korean 5G mobile phones should be able to access the domestic 5G network.

Countdown to the 4.5G race

In the 5G arena of 2019, South Korea is vying for the lead and the United States is anxious, and they all seem to be trying hard to occupy something in this new journey.

In fact, according to interviews with 5G technology practitioners, what 5G really competes on is not network speed, but the ecosystem and the right to speak related to the ecosystem.

To this end, the technical practitioner gave an example: Everyone knows that 5G will bring about the interconnection of all things, but in the process of connecting everything, there are also technical standards. If South Korea is the first to achieve 5G popularization through low-priced 5G mobile phones, then when South Korea launches an IoT standard or explores a new model of 5G entertainment, they will have the market environment to take the lead in practicing this standard and model.

Once the standard has been tested domestically billions of times and no safety issues have been found, the cost of gaining recognition in the international market will become very low.

Imagine that one day in the future, our application areas of autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and cloud computing all adopt Korean standards. Then, the technology business that Korean companies can do based on these standards will be hundreds of times more than that of countries that have no say in these standards.

Just as the Internet has created the ecosystems of Microsoft and Intel, and 3G and 4G have created the absolute status of Google, Apple, Qualcomm, and RAM, the era of the Internet of Everything brought about by 5G is likely to have a market share of more than a hundred times that of these giant companies.

Therefore, which country will popularize 5G first has become a wrestling match between South Korea, the United States, China and other countries in the world in the 5G battlefield.

Because whether or not a country takes the lead in this competition determines whether its market can have the environment and capabilities to nurture new 5G ecosystem enterprises.

However, our media's attention to 5G is currently more focused on the 5G network speed itself, rather than the capital, talent and fair environment for the birth of unicorns required to build the 5G ecosystem.

Onlookers may be confused, but senior 5G practitioners must not lose sight of the big picture.

Thinking about our test results on Korean 5G mobile phones, as a media, it is somewhat regrettable.