The time is approaching! my country will have 5G commercial networks as early as the second half of 2018

The 5G standards will gradually be released next year, my country's 5G spectrum planning has also been determined, and the third phase of trials will also be launched.

Currently, the three major operators are also promoting the arrival of the 5G era. Of course, according to current plans, the earliest 5G trial commercial networks will appear is in the second half of next year. An era worth looking forward to is approaching.

Spectrum: my country's 5G spectrum planning is determined

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially released the frequency usage plan for 5G systems in the mid-frequency band. The plan clearly defines the 3300-3400MHz (in principle, the upper limit for indoor use), 3400-3600MHz and 4800-5000MHz frequency bands as the operating frequency bands of 5G systems.

my country has become the first country in the world to release a frequency usage plan for 5G systems in the mid-frequency band.

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Standard: The first version of the 5G international standard will be released in June next year

In the past, the development of mobile communications generally followed the steps of first issuing standards, then making products, then conducting tests, and finally commercializing them.

In the 5G era, the above steps are almost simultaneously promoted and mutually reinforcing, with 5G trials being used to support technology research and development, standardization and industrial development, ensuring the commercialization of 5G in 2020.

At present, the global 5G standard has not yet been determined. At the press conference on the development of the industrial communications industry in the first three quarters of 2017, Wen Ku, director of the Information and Communications Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said: "By the end of this year, we will complete part of the testing of the 5G second-phase network. When the first version of the 5G international standard is released in June next year, our products will basically be released simultaneously or close to commercial products, laying the foundation for the rapid development of 5G."

Testing: Phase 3 will begin

At present, my country's 5G technology experiment has entered the second phase, and the main content of the second phase, the 5G new air interface test, has basically been completed.

Next, the 5G technology experiment will enter the third phase, following the unified international standards of 5G and based on the commercial hardware platform, focusing on the single-station networking performance of pre-commercial equipment and related interconnection and interoperability tests. Therefore, subsequent system equipment and chips should aim at the 5G pre-commercial goal and fully meet the requirements of pre-commercial.

Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, pointed out before that the third phase of 5G trials will be implemented starting from 2018, and he hopes that the 5G standard will be officially approved by the ITU and become a new standard in 2018. Next, my country will accelerate the construction and application of 5G and strive to achieve the global debut in 2020.

China Telecom: 5G commercial trials started in June 2018

China Telecom said: By 2018, it will carry out basic 5G network verification in six cities. When it matures at the end of 2018, it will jointly innovate and explore some new services with vertical industries, and strive to realize the commercial use of 5G in key cities in 2020.

That is to say, China Telecom will conduct large-scale commercial trials from June 2018 to December 2019, and will enter large-scale commercial use after 2020.

Currently, China Telecom’s 5G innovation demonstration network trial has been launched in six cities, including Lanzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Xiong’an, Suzhou and Shanghai, with 6-8 stations in each city. It is currently mainly verifying the wireless networking capabilities and solutions in the 3.5GHz frequency band.

In particular, in early August this year, China Telecom announced the launch of the construction of a 5G innovation demonstration network in Xiongan, and released the "China Telecom 5G Innovation Demonstration Network White Paper", striving to achieve large-scale commercial use of 5G in 2020.

"We will take the construction of the 5G innovation demonstration network as an opportunity to drive innovative applications, realize 5G trial commercial use in 2019, and achieve large-scale commercial use in 2020," China Telecom said.

China Mobile: Commercial trials in 2019

Yi Zhiling, a senior scientist at the China Academy of Mobile Communications, said earlier that China Mobile is preparing to deploy 5G in three phases. It has now entered the second phase and is expected to be commercially available in 2020.

At this year's MWC Shanghai conference, China Mobile gave a clear development plan for 5G: in 2017, 5G field trials will be carried out in five cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Jiangsu, Guangzhou, and Ningbo, Zhejiang; large-scale trials will be carried out in 2018; pre-commercialization will be carried out in 2019, and large-scale commercialization will be achieved in 2020.

Shang Bing, Chairman of China Mobile, revealed at the 2017 interim results conference: "China Mobile is conducting 5G field trials this year and is steadily advancing according to the maturity of 5G standards and business models. At present, 5G technology is not yet mature in terms of application and business model. The 5G standard will be unified in the second half of next year, and the seven-nanometer chips required for 5G will not appear until the end of 2018 or 2019. 2019 to 2020 will be the peak period for 5G investment, and decisions will be made based on the maturity of the 5G industry, and there will be no blind investment."

Li Yue, president of China Mobile, also said that he does not think it will be too late to invest in 5G in 2019 because terminal mobile phones will only be launched by then, and will not invest in 5G for the time being.

China Unicom: Commercial trials to begin in 2019

China Unicom pointed out in a listed company announcement released on August 31 that the funds raised from the mixed-ownership reform will be mainly used for 4G capability enhancement and early trial commercial investment in 5G.

Judging from China Unicom's fund-raising and investment project use plan, the total investment in the "4G capability enhancement project, 5G networking technology verification, related business enablement and network trial commercial construction project" will be as high as 55.09 billion yuan and 27.1 billion yuan respectively in 2017-2019.

At the end of September, China Unicom held its second extraordinary shareholders' meeting in 2017. At the meeting, Wang Xiaochu said when talking about 5G investment, "We can't be soft-handed. We were soft-handed on 4G in the beginning, which led to today's difficulties. Before 5G came out, we controlled our investment at a reasonable level. After 5G comes out, we still need to make large investments in the early stage to maintain a large competitive advantage, as early as the second half of 2019."

At present, China Unicom has also teamed up with Huawei to establish a 5G field test base in Shanghai, completing the continuous deployment of 5G high and low frequency areas.

According to China Unicom's pace: 2017 is the technical verification stage, completing 5G small-scale trials of 2-5 stations in 2-4 key cities to verify the overall system capabilities of the 5G pre-commercial prototype; 2018 is a small-scale trial, completing the laboratory function verification of 5G commercial products, completing the Unicom construction plan, and building a 19-station scale test network in 4-6 cities; 2019 is the trial commercial period, gradually expanding the scale of the trial to more cities, more sites in each city, and simultaneously promoting the pre-commercial use of 5G networks; 2020 is the commercial stage, achieving deployment in key cities and key areas, summarizing the trial commercial experience, and promoting it to cities across the country.