World Telecom Day: What's China's next step for 5G?

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Themed "Bridging the Standardization Gap," the 51st World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is celebrated on Friday.

2019 is considered to be the breakout year for 5G, which makes 5G the most discussed topic of the day in telecommunication.

China has been accelerating the development of the 5G network.

Zhang Feng, chief engineer of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), delivered a speech at a telecom event held in Beijing on Friday.

According to Zhang, the next step for MIIT is to accelerate the construction of a new generation of information infrastructure, continue to improve network speed, reduce costs and promote 4G deep coverage and 5G commercial use deployment.

"At the same time, we must promote interconnection," said the chief engineer.

"China will adhere to the policy of open and sharing to achieve win-win cooperation," said Zhang, adding that the country will participate actively in international standardization activities of 5G.

Operators' 5G ambitions

As 5G network builders, China's three major operators – China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom – have been accelerating the pace of 5G commercialization. /VCG Photo

As 5G network builders, the three major operators of China – China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom – have been accelerating the pace of 5G commercialization.

China Mobile proposed a "5G+" project this March to accelerate the process of 5G construction. The operator has carried out scale trials in five cities and applied demonstrations in 12 cities.

China Telecom took the lead in releasing a 5G technical white paper in 2018 and launched 5G innovation pilot projects in 17 cities including Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

In April, China Telecom signed cooperation agreements with 56 industry partners in the field of industry application, technology innovation and general terminal, to build a 5G ecosystem.

The operator also advocated the establishment of the 5G innovation and development alliance to provide users with affordable 5G devices through extensive cooperation.

China Mobile released a "7+33+n" 5G network deployment plan last month, aiming to achieve continuous coverage in seven cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Xiong'an, and hotspot coverage in 33 cities.

The "n" represents an unlimited number of cities which will have a specially customized network within the 5G network, set up various industry application scenarios, and promote 5G application incubation and industrial upgrading.

"China Unicom hopes to work with partners to build a new ecosystem for the 5G industry," said Fan Yunjun, deputy general manager of China Unicom, at the Friday event.

Fan listed five major goals in this regard: to build more than 200 5G demonstration projects, more than 50 5G open laboratories, more than 100 5G innovative applications, more than 20 5G applications and more than 1,000 member units.

(Top image via VCG)