China's 5G ready for pre-commercial use

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China has finished the third-stage of technical experiments for 5G research and development, and the devices are ready for pre-commercial use, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) at a press conference on Tuesday.

"According to the test, the current system equipment has basically reached the pre-commercial level," said Wen Ku, deputy director of the Department of Information and Communications Technology Development of MIIT. "Both chip and terminal manufacturers are accelerating the development of related products."

Wen Ku, deputy director of the Department of Information and Communications Technology Development of MIIT /SCIO Photo

Based on the current progress, good commercial terminals can be expected in the middle of 2019, Wen added.

5G will become the infrastructure for building the new generation of information network, with the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) one of its important applications.

The development of the IoV, in turn, will accumulate experiences for the exploration of cross-industry and cross-field application of 5G, providing a better and broader platform for the latter.

"China's 5G has always been moving ahead, and Chinese enterprises have been working with enterprises around the world to promote the development of 5G," said Wen when asked if the Huawei case would influence the application of 5G in China.

He called on certain countries to provide a "fair, just and predictable" environment for Chinese enterprises' normal operation and cooperation with local enterprises, and "China will continue to uphold an open, collaborative and sharing principle to promote the construction of 5G networks, making the 5G terminal available for users as soon as possible."

(Cover via VCG)