How far is it from 5G network commercialization to being affordable for everyone?

This year's government work report proposed to promote the development of the "fifth generation mobile communications" industry. According to the plan, it is expected that 5G will be fully commercialized in 2020.

China, which followed behind in 3G and ran parallel with 4G, is striving to take the lead in the upcoming 5G era. "It is recommended to establish a national 5G strategic committee", "It is recommended that national ministries and commissions take the lead in establishing a national 5G industry alliance", "Set up a 5G national strategic fund as soon as possible", "Reduce the difficulty of using 5G terminal software", during the two sessions, promoting 5G to move towards application faster became one of the hot topics of concern to the representatives and members.

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It is recommended to publish a mid- to long-term 5G development action guide

my country was the first country in the world to launch 5G trials and built the world's largest 5G trial network in Huairou, Beijing. At present, my country's submissions of 5G international standard documents account for 32% of the world's total, and China's leading standardization projects account for 40%. Both the speed of advancement and the quality are at a relatively high level globally.

During the two sessions, Huang Zhengren, deputy to the National People's Congress and director of the Ningbo Institute of Materials of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other representatives jointly submitted a "Suggestion on Accelerating the 5G Commercialization Process and Helping to Build a Cyber ​​Power."

Huang Zhengren and others believe that my country has the basic advantages to accelerate the commercialization of 5G. In terms of network users and basic networks, China has built the world's largest 4G network; in terms of commercial environment, in recent years, my country's e-commerce transaction volume has accounted for more than 40% of the world's total, which is more than the total of the five countries of Britain, the United States, Japan, France and Germany.

"The country should vigorously support communications operators and equipment manufacturers in competing in the formulation of international standards for core Internet technologies, promote 5G system architecture and process standards that Chinese companies have participated in completing at the international level, and enable Chinese standards to lead global development."

Huang Zhengren and others suggested that a national 5G strategic committee be established as soon as possible to formulate a forward-looking 5G planning vision, release a mid- to long-term 5G development action guide, and plan in advance the "full-band" spectrum resources from low-frequency, medium-frequency to high-frequency. A 5G national strategic fund should be established to support the "front-end and back-end" innovation chain members including operations, system equipment, chips, terminals and instruments to actively contribute Chinese technical manuscripts, or take the lead or co-lead participation in international industrial project cooperation.

Enterprises are working hard to seize the beachhead

Companies closely related to the development of 5G are now gearing up for it.

ZTE has established a 5G R&D team of more than 4,500 people, with an annual R&D investment of 3 billion yuan. Fan Qingfeng, deputy to the National People's Congress, secretary of the Party Committee and senior vice president of ZTE, said that China's 5G technology has led the world. Although the international standards for 5G have not yet been released, 5G technology has been applied to 4G networks in advance, and more than 60 Pre5G networks have been deployed in more than 40 countries around the world. ZTE is responsible for national 5G test networks and scenario application tests in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiong'an New Area, etc. Once the international standards are announced, large-scale production will be possible soon.

Tong Guohua, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of Datang Telecom Group, revealed in an interview with Science and Technology Daily that fully promoting 5G commercialization is Datang's main focus this year. 100 5G base stations will be built in some cities across the country this year.

Last September, the China Mobile 5G Innovation Center open laboratory was established in Liangjiang New District, mainly for the development and testing of 5G network application scenarios. Guo Yonghong, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of China Mobile Communications Group Chongqing Co., Ltd., said that if all goes well, some companies in Chongqing are expected to be the first to use 5G networks this year.

Liu Guanghe, deputy to the National People's Congress and general manager of the General Affairs Department of Zhaoqing Branch of China Mobile Guangdong Company, suggested that Guangdong should take the lead in accelerating the deployment of 5G, build an ecosystem of integrated innovative industries, and introduce a development plan outline for the integration of the province and the entire industry.

Make 5G network affordable for everyone

"my country's 5G research and development trials have entered the third stage, but not enough attention has been paid to reducing the cost of 5G terminals and reducing the complexity of use," said Yu Shaohua, a member of the National People's Congress, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and deputy director of the Wuhan Post and Telecommunications Science Research Institute.

These problems mainly manifest in the following: there has been no breakthrough in the research and development of terminal chips and operating systems with independent intellectual property rights, resulting in the long-term high cost of smart terminals; the terminal software is too difficult to use, which discourages people who do not understand the Internet and pinyin, people in remote rural areas, low-income groups, and older people; and penetration into areas related to people's livelihood needs to be further strengthened.

In this regard, Yu Shaohua suggested that further breakthroughs should be made in the research and development of core chips and operating systems to continuously reduce the cost of terminal production, manufacturing and use, so that people of all classes in China can afford 5G networks.

"We need to continuously reduce the difficulty of using 5G terminal software and fully consider the level of acceptance of the elderly and non-Internet users, so that they can also easily use 5G networks and share the fruits of high-tech development," said Yu Shaohua.