With 5G commercial licenses issued ahead of schedule, how should we respond to the challenges that follow?

On the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued the "Basic Telecommunications Business License", commonly known as the 5G license, to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Broadcasting Corporation. It is worth mentioning that the 5G license issued this time is not the "temporary license" discussed by the industry before, but a formal commercial license for the 5G era.

As a result, China will become the fifth country to launch 5G commercial services after South Korea (April 3), the United States (April 6), Switzerland (May 7), and the United Kingdom (May 31). China's 5G is accelerating...

The 5G that the industry and the public are looking forward to is finally here. There is no doubt that the issuance of licenses at this time is of great significance, and real challenges will follow.

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Various factors accelerate the issuance of 5G commercial licenses

5G skipped the trial commercialization stage and went directly to the official commercialization stage, and the license issuance was at least half a year earlier than expected. 5G is different from previous generations of communication technologies in that its standard formulation, network construction, and commercialization plans are all ahead of previous generations of communication technologies.

First of all, from the perspective of 5G development itself, the acceleration of 5G commercialization is closely related to the formulation of standards. Compared with IMT-2000 (3G), which took 15 years from the proposal to the completion of the first standard version, IMT-2020 (5G) took only 5 years from the proposal of the vision to the completion of the complete standard formulation in 2020!

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5G is different from the multiple standards in the 2G/3G/4G era. The industry has reached a general consensus on 5G standards and hopes to form a unified 5G standard worldwide. Its significance lies not only in the 5G technology itself, but more importantly, the unified standard will help to effectively reduce costs, improve the feasibility of widespread application, and promote the rapid development of the entire industry chain. Therefore, although the 5G protocol standards are more complex than their predecessors, IMT-2020 has repeatedly shortened the protocol standard formulation cycle.

Secondly, China has completed its role transformation in the world's communications sector. Each generation of communications technology is about 10 years apart, with 3G discussed in 2000, 4G popular in 2010, and 5G, which will open the door to the Internet of Everything in 2020. Although it will take some time for the complete 5G standard to be frozen, its commercialization speed has obviously exceeded the industry's expectations.

When domestic 3G licenses were issued in 2009, 3G had been commercially available worldwide for a long time; when domestic 4G licenses were issued in 2013, it had been about three years since the first year of 4G commercial use abroad; when 5G commercial licenses were issued, China was already in the first echelon of the world's major 5G network construction and commercial countries along with the United States, South Korea and Japan. China has completed the transformation from nothing to something, and from follower to leader.

In terms of patents, the latest 5G patent report released by German patent data company IPlytics shows that as of April 2019, the number of 5G standard key patents applied for by Chinese companies has accounted for 34% of the world's total, ranking first in the world.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, Zhang Feng, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at the 5G Innovation and Development Summit that the main links of the 5G industrial chain have basically reached the commercial level. At the regular policy meeting of the State Council on May 21, Wen Ku, director of the Information and Communications Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, once again emphasized that 5G technology and products have become increasingly mature, and the main links of the industrial chain, such as systems, chips and terminals, have reached the commercial level.

At present, Huawei and ZTE's position among the major 5G equipment manufacturers is difficult to shake; in terms of 5G chips, among the only six companies in the world (Huawei, Unisoc, MediaTek, Samsung, Qualcomm, Intel), Chinese companies account for half of the number. In terms of optical fiber and cable, there are companies such as Changfei Optical Fiber, Hengtong Optics, and FiberHome Communications, among which the former two rank in the top three in the global industry ranking. In addition, domestic companies have completed 5G full industry business coverage including network planning, base station RF filters, network optimization, small base stations, optical modules, optical communication equipment, terminals, etc.

Furthermore, the issuance of 5G commercial licenses is a new judgment under the new domestic and international situation. The early issuance may enhance industry confidence. As the Sino-US negotiations encountered setbacks, Western countries represented by the United States stepped up sanctions on China's 5G, and Chinese companies represented by Huawei are under pressure from the world.

In this anti-market economy and anti-globalization trend, China's industrial chain urgently needs to break through this obstacle. When the upstream and downstream industries are mature and the operator's scale test is effective, issuing 5G commercial licenses in advance is certainly a move to break the barrier. Considering both internal and external aspects, this will not only promote the development of the domestic 5G industry, release the Chinese market to create a good industrial development environment, thereby driving domestic demand, but also establish a positive image for foreign markets, so that the global supply chain can be tested and confirmed again.