The three-day China International Information and Communications Exhibition 2020 ended on Saturday. Whether 5G investment is excessive, when 5G network will make money and whether 5G cost will remain high have become hot issues at the exhibition.
5G network construction: moderately ahead
China has built 600,000 5G base stations and connected more than 150 million terminals, vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology of China said at the opening ceremony. This is a global leader.
China's three major telecom operators also revealed their respective 5G construction progress. By September this year, China Mobile had completed its annual construction target ahead of schedule, opened more than 350,000 5G base stations, and commercialized 5G networks in all cities at and above the prefectural level and in some key counties. China Telecom and China Unicom have jointly built and Shared 5G networks, and a total of 330,000 5G base stations have been opened. In addition, the two operators each have a small number of their own base stations.
Historically, "killer" personal applications tend to emerge two to three years after the web is commercially available. In the next three years, China's 5G will still be in the "leading stage", and it is necessary to adhere to a moderately advanced pace of construction, so as to form a benign development model of 5G that "promotes the use of construction".
5G business model: Expected to be clearer next year
5G application is the highlight of this exhibition. 5G smart Mines, 5G Smart ports, 5G smart steel plants, 5G smart power grids, 5G telemedicine and other exhibition projects have been implemented and become demonstration projects.
5G small base station is a supplement to Acer station. Large supermarkets, sports venues, parks and vertical industries such as industry, transportation and power need 5G small base stations to provide network coverage, and integrate edge computing, big data and new AI technologies to make traditional industries more intelligent. Operators' purchases of 5G mASTS mean that those vertical-industry projects are landing on a wider scale.
In addition to industry applications, 5G messaging, an upgraded version of traditional SMS is also expected to be commercially available soon, pulling in a trillion-Yuan industry ecosystem.
Sources with China Mobile revealed during the exhibition that 5G news has been opened to commercial trials in 15 pilot provinces. At the 5G News Ecological Development Forum, equipment vendors, mobile phone manufacturers and other industrial chains said they are ready.
Cost of 5G network: will fall
Operators building 5G networks face huge energy costs. 5G masts are more energy efficient than 4G masts, which use only 10 to 20 per cent of the power per bit of 4G masts. But for 5G to achieve the same coverage as 4G, the number of base stations needs to be increased, and so does the corresponding energy consumption.
The energy consumption of 5G base station is at its peak at present, so the power consumption is indeed very high. Ericsson has reduced base station energy consumption through intelligent scheduling algorithm, dual-mode core network and other technologies. In the future, with the update and iteration of chip technology, 5G energy consumption curve is bound to decline.
5G network construction is a long-term process, with large investment in the early stage but no return. In particular, 5G base station consumes more power than 4G, so we hope to get preferential electricity price from the industry. In addition, users want to reduce the rate of traffic, operators are under great pressure in terms of capital and assessment indicators, and expect the new infrastructure policy to help solve the problem.
