In the "5G era", a large number of "unicorn" companies will emerge to seize the opportunity

Recently, Jiangsu Mobile Company released a message on its WeChat public platform: "In the second half of 2017, a 5G test network will be launched in Suzhou, 7-10 experimental sites will be built, and narrowband cellular Internet of Things (NB-IoT) has been opened in 10 cities and prefectures. It is at the forefront of the country in terms of Internet of Things research and deployment in the 5G era." This message has attracted great attention and heated discussions from all walks of life.

Experts and entrepreneurs have a consensus: in the competitive field of 5G core technology innovation, my country can achieve the goal of leading the world in 5G by integrating resources, joint innovation, key breakthroughs, and co-operation between businesses, innovating models, and accelerating applications.

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Start 5G network infrastructure construction with foresight

In order to welcome the upcoming 5G era, my country has focused on planning Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Ningbo and Suzhou as the first batch of cities in the country to build 5G test networks. It plans to conduct large-scale test networking next year and start the actual construction of 5G networks in 2019. It is expected that 5G networks will be commercially available in 2020.

my country's first white paper on the economic and social impact of 5G proposes that by 2030, 5G is expected to drive my country's direct economic output of 6.3 trillion yuan and create 8 million jobs.

Seeing the new changes, new formats and new values ​​that will occur in the 5G era, Jiangsu Mobile has made forward-looking plans and taken the lead in layout with its advantages in technology development, industrial supporting facilities and capital accumulated over the years. Jiangsu Mobile has made great efforts in the research and development and layout of 5G technology, actively preparing 5G laboratories, and focusing on research and development and innovation in the fields of basic communication capabilities, Internet of Vehicles, Industrial Internet, and network security.

In addition, Jiangsu Mobile has also signed 5G joint innovation research cooperation agreements with many partners, and will promote the establishment of a "5G Application Industry Alliance" to combine the forces of industry, academia, and research to jointly promote research on 5G-related technologies and standards, and focus on the five aspects of "5G intelligent connection, 5G intelligent manufacturing, 5G big data, 5G security, and 5G industry-university-research".

Following Suzhou, in the first half of this year, Wuxi Mobile signed agreements with multiple departments and enterprises to deploy a 5G vehicle networking test base, promoting Wuxi to build a national intelligent transportation comprehensive test base.

The reporter learned that my country has also built the world's largest 5G test network in Huairou, Beijing, where Chinese companies have just taken the lead in completing the second phase of 5G technology research and development trials. Sun Yixing, executive president of Hengtong Communications Industry Group, revealed that according to the plan, 5G will complete technology research and development trials from 2016 to 2018, and product research and development trials will be carried out from 2018 to 2020. At present, relevant technical verification is being carried out in an orderly manner. 5G is expected to achieve large-scale pre-commercial use in 2019, and the 5G commercial era will officially arrive in 2020.

Take the lead in competing for the "right to speak" in technology and standards

"5G is the fifth generation of mobile communication technology. Its biggest feature is that most of the communication subjects of 5G are not people. The objects of its service have extended from the past communication between people to the intelligent interconnection between things and people. Therefore, on the basis of improving the business experience of mobile Internet users, 5G will further meet the massive demand for future Internet of Things applications, deeply integrate with industries such as industry, medical care, and transportation, and realize the true 'Internet of Everything'." On August 2, Associate Professor Jia Ziyan from the School of Electrical and Information Engineering of Jiangsu University of Technology told Science and Technology Daily.

In the eyes of experts and entrepreneurs in the field of mobile communications, the new era of mobile communications development opened up by 5G will have huge commercial and social value. Therefore, the global mobile communications industry wants to take the lead in the research and application of 5G technology and standards, and strive to win the future market "voice".

Sun Yixing said: "Although 5G technology is still in the trial stage, the technical competition among manufacturers has already begun."

Jia Ziyan introduced that at present, my country's 5G has entered a critical period of standard development. 3GPP has fully launched 5G standard research and is formulating the first 5G standard (Release 15), which is scheduled to be completed and submitted to the International Telecommunication Union in June 2018. At the same time, my country has launched 5G R&D trials, and will complete the entire first phase of trials by the end of 2018, and complete the second phase of product development in 2019 and 2020. This will ensure that 5G will achieve large-scale commercial operation in 2020.

In the words of Xiang Jiying, a representative of a member unit of the China 5G Promotion Group, "We can now say with confidence that we are leading the world in multi-antenna technology. We were the first to launch a prototype and the first to commercialize it."

The Internet of Everything is not a simple thing

5G can improve network resource utilization and solve the problem of uneven mobile base station usage; 5G networks can support smartphone screen flipping and voice translation; 5G may make the world say goodbye to traffic accidents; through 5G broadband, mobile phones will have unimaginable capabilities after connecting to the cloud platform, and will also have the ability to learn. In the eyes of Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an expert in optical fiber transmission networks and broadband information networks, 5G networks make mobile phones unimaginable.

In the application of 5G, my country will focus on three directions: enhancing mobile broadband, replacing optical fiber with wireless, and realizing virtual reality; achieving ultra-reliable and low-latency applications; and realizing the interconnection of all things. However, many experts believe that it is not an easy task for my country to catch up and lead in the 5G era. At present, it is necessary to speed up the resolution of a series of "bottlenecks" in basic key technologies and applications.

Jia Ziyan told reporters that the International Telecommunication Union has identified three major application scenarios for 5G: enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine-type communications, and ultra-high reliability and low-latency communications. Among them, enhanced mobile broadband considers more immersive services such as ultra-high-definition video, next-generation social networks, and immersive games, which will promote the upgrading of human interaction methods. Massive machine-type communications will be deeply integrated with mobile communications in typical application scenarios represented by smart cities and smart homes, and it is expected that hundreds of billions of devices will be connected to the 5G network. Ultra-high reliability and low-latency communications can seamlessly support vertical industry applications such as Internet of Vehicles, mobile medical care, and industrial Internet.

To meet the needs of the above three categories of application scenarios, 5G has identified eight key capability indicators; and in order to achieve the key capability indicators, 5G must adopt a series of advanced technologies in terms of air interface and network structure, among which the recognized key technologies mainly include large-scale antenna arrays, millimeter wave communications and ultra-dense networks.

"With the implementation of 5G and the rapid development of technologies such as cloud computing and big data, the importance of data centers in the network is increasing. How to build a new generation of data centers with large capacity, high elasticity, energy saving and environmental protection to meet the needs of business development has become a direction that the industry is currently exploring," said Sun Yixing.

Massive applications and a large number of "unicorn" companies will emerge

In the view of experts and entrepreneurs, with the emergence of cloud computing, Internet of Things big data, and mobile Internet, the Internet has begun to serve production, 5G has entered the "Internet +" era and the industrial Internet era, and the new era will provide huge opportunities for the rise of new companies.

"Over the years, the development of the Internet has contributed to the growth of a number of companies, including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook in the United States, Baidu, NetEase, Tencent, JD.com in China. Now the new round of Internet-oriented industries will breed a large number of "unicorn" companies with 5G, and there will definitely be a new batch of Internet companies rising rapidly." Sun Yixing said.

The massive applications in the 5G era will undoubtedly put forward higher demands on broadband networks. The application scenarios in the 5G era are more abundant, which means that the future FTTH (fiber to the home) network needs lightweight, all-medium, multi-functional distribution optical cable products that can meet more laying methods, so as to reduce the difficulty of FTTH optical cable access and wiring, and ultimately create a FTTH flexible access network. Industry experts said that these fields are the "birthplaces" of future "unicorn" companies.

In order to create data centers and more development opportunities in the 5G era, Hengtong Group has also launched vigorous innovations. Sun Yixing said: "The ICT (new technology field formed by the integration of information technology and communication technology) industry is accelerating integration, and innovation in the 5G era should not be innovation in a single technology or field. Although Hengtong started out in optical fiber and cable, in recent years it has been accelerating the transformation and upgrading of the entire ICT industry, and has laid out big data, quantum communication, broadband operations, smart communities and other fields. We are committed to building a full value chain service provider with comprehensive ICT strengths."

In my country's communications field, both industries and enterprises are actively seizing the opportunities in 5G development.