5G Enters A Critical Period Of Development: Accelerating The Cost Of Base Station Coverage And Continuous Breakthrough Of Application

In 2020, China's 5g scale construction will enter the "fast track". At present, China has the largest scale 5g commercial network in the world. By the end of the year, more than 70 5g base stations will be built, and SA network coverage will be fully launched.

On December 24, 2020, Wen Ku, a spokesman of the Ministry of industry and information technology, said at the press conference of the office of the State Council of information technology that the number of 5g users will grow very fast in 2020, and the number of terminal connections of 5g will exceed 200 million. So far, the shipment volume of 5g mobile phones will be 144 million. In 2020, 580000 5g base stations will be added, of which 330000 shared base stations will be jointly built and shared, and all cities will have 5g network coverage.

Looking back on the year of 5g commercial use, C-terminal products have grown rapidly, users have been climbing, and b-end industrial pilot has been more in-depth; at the same time, the policy dividend has been constantly promoting the industry forward. On December 22, 2020, the Ministry of industry and information technology organized China Telecom, China mobile and China Unicom to hold a 5g frequency usage forum, and issued 5g medium and low frequency band frequency envoys to three basic telecom operators Use the license.

However, the curtain of 5g has just opened, and the industrial transformation is slow and lasting. "5g is still an infrastructure, not a business upgrade like 4G. 4G is a direct promotion of 3G communication, but 5g is another concept," a person from the communication industry told the 21st century economic report. With the emergence of mobile Internet, 4G happens to have a lot of mature facilities, which bring visible changes to our daily life. However, 5g development is different. To make 5g bring earth shaking changes to life, it can't happen in a short time. What's more, we can see the development of 5g applications from various vertical industries. "

"China 5g development and economic and social impact white paper (2020)" (hereinafter referred to as "white paper") issued by China Academy of communications and communications pointed out that the development of 5g industry will enter a critical period in the next two to three years. This period is not only the cultivation period of 5g application ecology, but also an important window period for manufacturers to accumulate strength and accelerate transformation and growth.

5g base station in City

From the point of view of hardware base station construction, the current 5g base station construction can be described as "big work fast", and the competition among major cities on 5g first city is becoming increasingly fierce. According to incomplete statistics, Shanghai and Shenzhen are at the forefront in terms of the cumulative number of 5g base stations. According to the published data, about 46000 5g base stations have been built in Shenzhen, and 5g independent network coverage has been achieved. There are more than 25000 5g outdoor base stations in Shanghai and 31000 indoor small stations in 5g. It is planned to build 34000 outdoor 5g base stations in the next three years. Guangzhou has built about 25000 5g base stations, It is planned to build 80000 5g base stations by 2022.

According to the data from the white paper, the distribution of base station construction in China shows that the eastern coastal area is ahead of the inland area, and the south is ahead of the north. Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan, Shandong, Shanghai, Beijing, Sichuan, Chongqing and other provinces have built more than 20000 5g base stations.

On December 22, 2020, Shenzhen Municipal Development and Reform Commission issued some measures on vigorously promoting the development of 5g innovative application, which supported and encouraged the tackling of key technologies in 5g application field, the construction of innovation carrier in 5g application field, the industrialization development of 5g core products, and the scale application of 5g modules and chips. For example, for 5g in the vertical industry application of wireless technology, network and business, key parts, testing and instrumentation and other "neck" links, we carried out key technology research and development, focusing on the development and manufacturing of 5g communication high-frequency devices, array antennas, optical communication chips, ultra-high-definition image sensing, and layout a number of major equipment and key parts development projects, according to the total number of projects 40% of the investment will be subsidized, up to 300 million yuan.

In the context of strong policies, cities continue to formulate relevant plans to promote the landing of 5g, while operators also accelerate the deployment, but the improvement of commercial network still needs a long period.

"Judging from the development experience of 3G and 4G, it generally takes 3-4 years from the beginning of commercial operation to the period of deep coverage. On November 20, 2020, China Mobile announced that it would increase investment in 5g and achieve good coverage of cities, counties, urban areas and some key towns in 2021. It is estimated that operators will gradually stop the large-scale construction of 4G network in 2020, and focus on the construction of 5g network completely, "the white paper said." from the perspective of networking mode, the 5g network construction of China's basic telecom enterprises is still aiming at independent networking In terms of construction strategy, operators will take the opportunity of developing vertical industry market to further expand the industry application market. Take the strategy of laying equal stress on the network construction for consumers and industries, and focus on covering industries with demand. "

On December 28, 2020, Xiao Yaqing, Minister of the Ministry of industry and information technology, said at the National Conference on industry and information technology that the construction and application of 5g network will be promoted in an orderly manner, 5g coverage in major cities will be accelerated, joint construction and sharing will be promoted, and more than 600000 5g base stations will be built. Xiao Yaqing said that it is necessary to take 5g construction as the lead and make overall arrangements for data centers and computing power facilities. At the same time, focus on 10 key industries, form 20 typical industrial application scenarios, carry out industrial 5g private network pilot, and timely release 5g millimeter wave frequency planning for some frequency bands.

How to break the situation in cost and application field?

At the same time, high cost and insufficient application are still problems to be solved.

"On the one hand, the key cost has not been reduced to the critical point. On the other hand, the supporting industries around the key cost are still climbing. Why can't apple do well in 2G and 3G? It's because it's not ready, Android, the Internet and touch screen are not ready. The historical coincidence is that in a year or two, the elements are all in place It has developed rapidly since then. Now the cost of 5g has been reduced, but the key cost has not been reduced, such as large-scale base station deployment, energy consumption and power consumption. "

Previously, some communication practitioners told reporters that in order to save power, 5g base stations are closed at night in some areas, but in fact, the communication demand of users at night is the most vigorous.

At the same time, b-end applications seem to be in full bloom, but there are limited areas in the industry scene that can be targeted and solve the pain points. Manufacturing industry and industrial Internet are promising directions, but it is still a long way to go to realize large-scale application. 5g is not "plug and play". It is a very complex process to transform the digital system through 5g technology, which is closely related to the enterprise's digital foundation, whether there is capital investment and the willingness of the management. At the same time, 5g era needs to find a new commercial closed-loop to bring new impetus to the development of the industrial chain.

On the one hand, the white paper mentions that despite the rapid development of network construction and the number of users, 5g network is still in the initial stage of scale coverage, and the user penetration rate is just over 10%. 5g consumer class applications are still in the initial stage of introduction, innovative applications are still cultivating business, still focusing on enhancing 4G business application experience, and all parties are actively exploring video applications based on enhanced mobile broadband. For example, telecom operators actively promote 5g plus video entertainment applications, and Internet companies carry out consumer level application layout, including AR / VR live broadcast.

On the other hand, other supporting artificial intelligence, automatic driving and industrial Internet of things are all climbing production capacity. 5g is a part of them and needs to be developed together.

Lu Yong, senior vice president of Huawei Company and President of China region, has found in practice that no matter remote control, image recognition, or unmanned machine and other scene applications, it is impossible to rely on the simple 5g connection ability. 5g can produce fusion effect only when it cooperates with other capabilities such as intelligent terminal, industrial terminal, cloud computing, AI, and combining with industry information system Only in this way can we realize the value of.

"In the mining areas of Shandong and Shanxi, remote control based on 5g makes it unnecessary for many workers to go down the well for hundreds of meters of underground work. In the future, "three high" (high risk, high repetition and high precision) work will be done by machines with the improvement and innovation of information infrastructure Lu Yong said in an interview with the 21st century economic reporter.

Compared with spreading its network at b-end, Huawei is more focused, especially in the fields of mining, power grid, port, steel and so on. ZTE has realized "5g manufacturing 5g" in Nanjing Binjiang smart factory, and achieved shore bridge remote control with 5g in Tianjin Port smart port. It will continue to lay out in 15 industries such as industry, education, medical treatment, media and transportation.

Next, 5g will be more deeply integrated into the industrial Internet. For example, 5g industry terminals and modules will usher in new development opportunities. According to ABI research data, the global IOT cellular communication module shipment will increase to 1.25 billion pieces in 2023, and exceed 4G modules in 2024. At the same time, the white paper predicts that consumption level innovative applications with 5g characteristics may grow in scale from 2022 to 2023, the growth period of 5g industry application scale is expected to appear after 2023, and the period from 2021 to 2023 will still be the introduction period of 5g industrial applications, and the industrial applications will be gradually put into commercial use in batches.

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