IDCNOVA Commentary:Even back early this year,Chinese MIIT has revealed to issue some 5G licenses for commercial use,but that’s for temporary period,it astonished people when it turned out to be official licenses for commercial use on 5G during the granting ceremony dated June 6,2019,which is reasonable and surprising.Thus,China became another country to provide 5G service after USA,South Korea,Switzerland and UK.Under such circumstance,are the three fundamental Chinese telco operators,China Mobile,China Telecom and China Unicom ready yet?What effect will it bring about to the future pattern?
Unexpected granting 5G licenses
For ordinary people,that the earlier issuing 5G licenses is affected by Sino-US trade war,however,this is just a external element,the real internal element lies in that the Chinese 5G industry has stepped into a mature stage as well as its function to push the economic development amid vague prospects under the blurry world situation.
In terms of 5G industry chain,China has set up the IMT-2020(5G)promotion team as early as 2013,and started the crucial technology research and development,technological program verification and systematic verification,etc.,what’s more,all the above work had been achieved successfully in the end of 2018,that is the root cause to accelerate the 5G commercial use than planning.In addition,China owns a full industry chain of 5G spectrum equipment,end chips,smart phones,which are steady foundation and advantage.It can be said that,no matter standard formulation,equipment R&D or even tech storage,China is far ahead of other countries in the 5G industry,which cast shadow on the USA indeed.
As for the external cause of international situation,5G is always a focus to compete for many world leading powers due its huge values connecting with IoT,edge computing and so on,USA has pushed 5G to a national strategy in particular.Considering that,USA is sparing no efforts to confront with China for a full-around size,and Huawei becoming the target owing to its numerous technologies and patents relating to 5G.China issued 5G licenses for commercial use,to ease the pressure form USA,unleash the utmost advantages of 5G of China,and convey a clearly opening up attitude,welcoming Ericsson,Nokia,Intel,Qualcomm and other foreign enterprises involved in Chinese 5G industry benefits,which is confident and active dealing up.
Moreover,5G commercial use is a dashing tendency too.Operators,equipment manufacturers and Upstream and downstream enterprises has made active preparations for this.Some industrial chain enterprises has invested a lot for years with billions of dollars on 5G research and development.The current 5G environment of China is mainly focusing on demonstration,only 5G commercial use accelerated that the industrial confidence could be strengthened and thus the Chinese 5G market could step into maturity stage.What’s more,this could assist digital transformation of tradition industries and help operators out of traffic operation dilemma.
Are operators ready for 5G?
The sudden issuing 5G licenses as big favor though,it definitely will cause some effects for the three major Chinese fundamental operators,then are they ready now?
First we should pay attention to network.In 2018,the 5G commercial use is not so urgent yet,at the experimental stage and the construction is generally pushing firmly,which is planned to launch after 2020.While with the sudden acceleration in 2019,the networking pressure will definitely be increased for operators.The existing NSA method by China Mobile,it will be advanced according to the future status.China Telecom is mainly applied in SA together with hybrid networking planning NSA/SA,and China Unicom is constructing the trial network of NSA.
SA standard is completed in the middle of 2018,although overall maturity not competing with NSA,it’s more advanced.The issuing of 5G license will advance operators to develop NSA for early hybrid networking.
The overall investment plan of operators will also be effected and more capital and resources will pour to 5G.Currently major operators are planning for 5G in terms of base stations and experimental trial.The overall construction will come soon.
Will 5G chaneg the future telecom patterns?
Someone says that,in the future 5G market,China Mobile will continue the dominant status,however,that may not be.Owing to the preferential gain before,China Mobile leap forward in 4G era.But in the coming 5G time,this advantage will be diminished.Nowadays,China Mobile is relatively weak in the spectrum owing,needed to lower the cost.The 3.5G spectrum owned by China Telecom and China Unicom,is the mainstream spectrum owing mature industry chain and is obviously competitive in terms of size and cost.The 700MHz spectrum owned by China Broadcast will cause some effects in segmented fields in the future,let’s see.
Finally,5G network construction is not simply telecom tech upgrading,but big thing related to national livelihood,and a key to open the future IoT and edge computing time,which is not enough merely by operators,but also governmental policies and all industries’cooperation.
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