Domestic 5G Application Exploration Accelerates Millimeter Wave Still Waiting For Commercial Application

It is estimated that by 2034, the use of 5G millimeter wave in China will contribute about $104 billion to China's GDP.

2020 is the year when 5G is set sail in the industry. Now under the new infrastructure policy, 5G is ready to go.

Although this year's epidemic will slow down the pace of 5G construction, the long-term trend will not change, and the long-distance online communication problems will also stimulate the demand of 5G.

In March 17th, China Mobile's economic development report 2020 released by GSMA predicted that by 2025, the penetration of 5G users in China will increase to nearly 50%, equivalent to other major 5G markets such as Korea, Japan and the United States.

Specifically, it is estimated that by 2025, China's 5G penetration rate will reach 47%. By then, the number of 5G connections in China will reach 807 million. In March 19th, China Mobile announced its 2019 results. Up to the end of February 2020, the number of 5G packages has reached 15 million 400 thousand.

It shows the great potential of the Chinese market, and now the infrastructure needs to be invested heavily. GSMA predicts that between 2020 and 2025, the capital expenditure of Chinese carriers based on mobile business will reach US $180 billion, of which about 90% will be used for 5G network construction.

Take China Mobile as an example. According to the latest data, China Mobile's 5G related investment amounted to 24 billion yuan in 2019, and China Mobile's planned 5G investment amounted to 100 billion yuan in 2020, more than 4 times that of last year.

At the same time, the exploration of 5G applications has been on the road. In addition to C terminal mobile phones, AR/VR and other scenarios, industrial vertical industry applications are more concerned. At present, the domestic application case of 5G industry has covered many fields, such as industrial manufacturing, transportation, medical, education, content and so on. At the same time, it also faces problems such as cost and maturity of industrial chain.

2020 is the year when 5G is set sail in the industry. Now under the new infrastructure policy, 5G is ready to go. Gan Jun photo

Application exploration

According to the latest forecast of GSMA think tank, by 2025, there will be 411 operators in the world in 119 countries and regions. When 5G is used, the number of 5G users worldwide will reach 1 billion 800 million, of which China will account for nearly 45% of the total number of users, making it the largest 5G market in the world.

And the key link is how to do business. On the one hand, both C terminal hardware upgrade and software innovation, on the other hand, there is a paradigm shift of B end application. In particular, the B end application of industrial level is the great expectation of 5G from all walks of life. According to GSMA's prediction, by 2030, the global vertical industry market size will reach nearly $700 billion for operators through 5G.

From the perspective of domestic vertical cases, more than 10 industries have been covered from manufacturing to transportation, electricity and education. Among them, manufacturing industry accounts for a relatively high proportion of industry applications, such as flexible production based on 5G edge computing, Tianjin Haier washing machine factory 5G intelligent park, China Shang Fei 5G+8K aircraft surface quality monitoring, Sany's 5G intelligent manufacturing and so on.

Yang Tao, vice president of HUAWEI's China operator business department, told reporters before: "for the development of 5G, we must stand on the day after tomorrow to see tomorrow, and also stand today to see tomorrow. To see the trend of industrial development, we judge that there are certain technical risks, such as manufacturing, medical treatment, service robots, and automatic driving, but this is the direction of scientific and technological workers and capital all over the world. These four directions will surely produce value.

He also said: "at the same time, we need to see what vertical industries are driven by demand today. For example, the new media live broadcast, security, power field, and traffic road bridge, which coincide with the 5G2C network very high. We also think that tomorrow we will have an opportunity tomorrow. At present, HUAWEI has also combined upstream and downstream to establish a model of Shanghai Yangshan Port intelligent port, State Grid and smart grid of China Southern Power Grid, Shenzhen Airport AR advertising and other industries.

However, it should be pointed out that many applications are still in the small scale practice, and the large-scale popularization of vertical application from 5G will take time and challenge.

GSMA, general manager of innovation and ecological cooperation in Greater China, told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that 5G's industry application exploration is a long-term process with a phased and divided emphasis. There are three challenges to be solved, one is to clarify the application scenario, the other is the communication and cooperation innovation on the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and the three is to set up the relevant standards. Two

In addition, according to the reporter, many enterprises are very concerned about cost and energy consumption. How to carry out low-cost and efficient deployment for the industry is a big problem. Especially for many manufacturing industries, the profit is not high, and the cost is particularly important. Therefore, we also look forward to a time when the Internet can be used like electricity.

Moreover, for domestic manufacturing enterprises, there is still a problem of infrastructure. Some manufacturers have relatively high technology content and can quickly integrate 5G, and 5G has played a more powerful role. However, many manufacturers still have low level of industrialization, and they need to upgrade digitally.

There may be resistance in the process of 5G commercialization, but the broad connection, high speed and low latency advantages brought by 5G are the elements needed in the digital transformation of various industries.

Millimeter wave scene supplement

As we all know, 5G has two main bands, namely Sub-6GHz and millimeter wave (24GHz-86GHz).

The domestic applications mentioned above are all cases under Sub-6GHz. In fact, millimeter wave as high frequency wave is valuable for specific industry scenarios.

The so-called millimeter wave refers to the electromagnetic wave with a wavelength of 1 to 10 millimeters, which has the characteristics of large bandwidth and narrow beam. Its advantages are outstanding. High speed, high capacity, millimeter wave can provide a maximum carrier bandwidth of up to 400 to 800MHz, which is ten times higher than that of 4G 20MHz, and can increase the transmission rate of 5G network to 10Gbps level.

Its disadvantages are also very obvious. Millimeter wave transmission distance is short. If there are trees blocking in the middle, if the weather is raining and haze will have an impact on the transmission. Therefore, 5G millimeter wave is positioned as a coverage solution for high value hot spots, as a supplement to Sub-6GHz wide coverage network. The United States, which started with millimeter wave, is now setting out for the layout of Sub-6GHz. Therefore, there are many controversies surrounding 5G millimeter wave. Although the coverage is weak, some special application scenarios can be supplemented to support data intensive 5G applications.

GSMA, general manager of public policy in Greater China, said in an interview with the twenty-first Century economic news reporter that millimeter wave coverage is indeed small. China has begun deploying it from the middle frequency band, but the low, medium and high frequency spectrum will play a key role in the 5G network. The high capacity and high speed characteristics of millimeter wave are suitable for high density area. For example, in the black light factory of industrial scene, the 5G millimeter wave is not a substitute for the intermediate frequency scene, but is supplemented in more new scenes.

According to the GSMA report, the deployment of 5G millimeter wave applications in industrial 4 scenarios and interconnected transport scenarios will bring many benefits. The millimeter wave spectrum, especially the millimeter wave spectrum in the 24.25-27.5GHz and 37-43.5GHz bands, can provide the necessary continuous spectrum for a large number of data intensive 5G applications.

The report also predicted the application scenario structure of China's 5G millimeter wave. Among them, the utilities in vertical industries, such as manufacturing and utilities, are the most visible industries, accounting for 62% of the total contribution, followed by professional services and financial services, accounting for 12%; information and communications and trade, accounting for 10%; then agriculture and mining, and finally public services.

At present, Japan, South Korea, the United States and some European countries have taken the lead in completing the 5G millimeter wave spectrum division. Recently, the US has completed the largest millimeter wave spectrum auction yet. But China did not have a clear plan for millimeter wave. In 2017, the Radio Authority issued the "public subscription to the fifth generation international mobile communication system (5G) in millimeter wave band".

At the same time, millimeter wave technology has put forward new requirements for key devices such as baseband chip, RF chip, antenna, frequency converter, phase shifter, power amplifier, low noise amplifier and RF switch. Therefore, from policy to technology, domestic millimeter wave business still needs to wait.

?