5G will make your 4G mobile phone obsolete. How can you become a "pig" in the 5G trend?

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According to Gartner data, the total sales volume of smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2017 was 408 million units, down 5.6% from the same period last year. IDC data shows that the global market mobile phone shipments in 2017 were 1.46 billion units, down 0.5% year-on-year. Among them, the shipments in the European market fell by 3.5%, and the shipments in the Chinese market fell by 5%. From today's perspective, as smartphones are basically saturated in the mainstream market around the world, it is difficult to show large-scale growth in the future. For mobile phone manufacturers, how to survive the winter has become a very realistic topic at present, but does it have a chance for a second spring? If so, the answer may lie in 5G.

The development of the smartphone industry will have phased transformation nodes - from small screens to large screens, from large screens to full screens, from 2G to 3G, and from 3G to 4G. The transformation of screens has made Samsung successful, and the transformation of communication technology has driven the prosperity and rapid growth of the smartphone industry.

We know that in the past, each generation of communication technology innovation was accompanied by a new round of dividends, and the dividends of communication technology will first affect the upstream industry, including base stations, antennas, optical cables, chips, RF devices and other communication equipment and related manufacturers, followed by major telecom operators, and the downstream industry affected is smartphone manufacturers. From the past, each communication technology change will bring a new round of reshuffle and incremental space to the smartphone industry. Data shows that the global mobile phone market entered the 3G replacement era in 2009-2010, which also led to a 20-40% increase in China's mobile phone production. The transition from 2G to 3G caused Nokia to be left behind in the 3G era, while Apple rose accordingly. In 2013-2014, it entered the era of smartphones and 4G replacement, and the growth rate of smartphone production also reached 10-30%.

What about the transition from 4G to 5G? It is said that the speed of 5G can reach 10-100 times that of 4G, and it can transmit 8K resolution 3D video in real time, or download a 3D movie in 6 seconds. According to an industry insider, the concept of 5G can be defined by "signature capability indicators" and "a set of key technologies". Among them, the signature capability indicator is "Gbps user experience rate", and a set of key technologies includes large-scale antenna arrays, ultra-dense networking, new multiple access, full spectrum access and new network architecture.

Therefore, in my opinion, it will bring at least several major changes. First, the call quality and transmission rate will be greatly improved. Secondly, 5G communication will not only be a mobile Internet, but also an important infrastructure for the Internet of Things industry due to its low power consumption, low latency, and high access. In addition, the surge in mobile phone traffic consumption and the mobile video and audio industries, as well as smart homes, VR, AR, etc. will use 5G networks to access the Internet, which may bring about a new round of phone replacement. However, from a technical point of view, the threshold for 5G will become higher, and there will not be too many manufacturers who can get 5G tickets.

At present, many manufacturers have also seen the opportunities of 5G. At the Mobile World Congress (MWC), Qualcomm demonstrated a new 5G module solution and launched the 700 series of mid-to-high-end positioning chips. Huawei released its first 5G commercial chip and terminal. During this conference, ZTE also focused on displaying end-to-end solutions for 5G commercial technology, networks and industry applications. OPPO's layout for 5G was launched as early as the beginning of 2015 and a communication standards team was established. It has also carried out industry-university-research cooperation with well-known domestic and foreign universities such as New York University and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, including in the field of 5G technology, including networks, terminals, applications, etc. Samsung, Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Intel have established technology commercialization and communication cooperation with Verizon.

At present, as global operators collectively lose their way and mobile phone manufacturers look for new windows, it is conceivable that more and more manufacturers will bet on 5G, and some in the industry even believe that 5G will incubate an ecosystem similar to the i-mode model. However, the popularization of 5G requires the three major operators to accelerate the construction of 5G base stations. The pace of follow-up and mutual running-in between manufacturers and operators is also very critical, including the construction process of 5G standards and operator base stations.

The progress of 5G is not smooth in both China and the United States, because 5G technology integrates different spectrum types and frequency bands, frequencies, bandwidths and diversified services. Spectrum is the basic resource for the development of 5G, but spectrum resources are very tight. According to the forecast of the International Telecommunication Union, by 2020, the demand for international mobile communication frequencies will reach 1340MHz-1960MHz, and China's mobile communication frequency demand will be 1490MHz-1810MHz, with a spectrum gap of 1000MHz.

For example, the US operator Verizon is testing 5G at 28GHz, which is too high to guarantee nationwide coverage; Sprint uses the 2.5GHz mid-band, but the bandwidth is only 100MHz, which guarantees coverage but not network speed. Regarding the issue of spectrum resource allocation for 5G, Wang Jianzhou from the industry said that if each operator can only be allocated 100MHz of frequency, it will be difficult to meet the peak downlink rate of 20Gb/s required by 5G. The solutions he suggested include using millimeter wave bands and operators sharing frequency resources and even access systems.

Jefferies investment bank forecasts:

By 2022, there will be 588.3 million 5G users in the mainland, accounting for 39.9% of the total number of mobile phone users in the country that year.

At present, there is still a transition period from 4G to 5G. It requires a relatively long construction cycle to gradually and slowly replace the coverage process. According to the law, the existing 4G LTE will continue to evolve and become an important part of the 5G platform. Moreover, after 5G is commercialized, 4G, 3G, and 2G networks will continue to work.

Although 5G will bring Internet speeds far exceeding the current 4G experience, the arrival of this time point may be neither far away nor near. Although it represents a faster and better communication network experience, it does not mean that 4G will completely withdraw from the stage of history soon.

The experience of 5G mobile phones will definitely beat 4G, and the wave of replacement will not burst out instantly. From the current experience of smartphones, compared with the past transition from 2G to 3G and 3G to 4G, the smartphone experience of 4G communication network is already very complete. Therefore, people's mobile network experience shortcomings and pain points are no longer as strong as in the past. The urgency of the demand for replacement has decreased, the replacement cycle has been extended, and the factors that tempt users to replace their phones are becoming more and more elusive. It can be imagined that the 5G replacement wave may still be a slow and long process, and the replacement cycle brought by 5G may be a climbing curve rather than a geometric data growth. Therefore, smartphone manufacturers do not need to be too optimistic about the 5G replacement wave. In fact, the closer the time node is to 5G, the more users are on the sidelines, and the weaker the demand for replacement will be. In general, 5G is also testing the current layout ideas and rhythm of mobile phone manufacturers.

However, from the perspective of the development of the smartphone industry, the nodes of technological change are often grasped by manufacturers with foresight and technological awareness. For many users, they are waiting for the turning point of 5G technology to bring truly differentiated products. The 5G high-speed network era is an important time node for operators to increase traffic charges in order to improve performance. To improve performance, operators must also develop new businesses such as the Internet of Things, cloud, and big data, which are highly compatible with the 5G era. Therefore, China's three major telecom operators are also making every effort to get ahead, with a total investment of US$180 billion in 5G infrastructure, and plans to build the world's largest 5G network.

For domestic mobile phones, it is very important to keep up with the deployment rhythm of 5G by operators. As 5G technology matures, the experience changes brought to smartphones will far exceed the past 4G experience, including the smooth experience of high-definition video, and the rapid evolution and development of VR and AR presentation methods combined with smartphones, including the rapid popularization of *** traffic. When the user's available network speed is calculated in Gbps instead of Mbps, it means that the user's data traffic package far exceeds the standard under the 4G network. A new round of reforms and business competition among operators will start again, which may bring many dividends to users, including a substantial price reduction for basic communications such as telephone and traffic.

To some extent, 5G may make smartphones based on the previous 4G standard obsolete.

This requires smartphone manufacturers to keep up with the pace in terms of software and hardware compatibility, adaptation and performance standards, and even to work closely with operators to solve various key technologies of 5G and dominate standards. Of course, many manufacturers and technology giants are still waiting and watching, or waiting for the technology to mature before taking action, but we know that only by winning the standards of the 5G era and going deep into each link to win the key technologies can we stand at the upstream of the future industrial chain and reap the biggest dividends of the 5G market. If we can take the lead in key technologies such as high-frequency band technology, 5G baseband, and 5G millimeter wave technology, we will be more likely to take the lead in the 5G smartphone business and seize the opportunity of the next wave of technological trends.

Having missed out on 2G, 3G, and 4G, how to dominate or pioneer the 5G standard is an opportunity for Apple, Samsung, and domestic mobile phone manufacturers. How can mobile phone manufacturers ensure that they will not be constrained by talent at the core technology level after the trend arrives? This is the key idea for forward-looking layout, so as to ensure that existing technologies can be quickly applied to products to form an innovative product experience. Only by forward-looking layout and accurately grasping this trend can we become the pig on the vent in the new round of dividends of 5G consumption upgrade in the future.

[Author introduction: Wang Xinxi, senior TMT commentator, WeChat public account: Redianweiping]