5 thoughts on “ZTE, China Telecom and China Unicom complete 5G co-build, co-share verification”

1. “That fully verifies the large-scale commercial capabilities of the 5G co-build/co-share mode, and lays a solid foundation for greatly reducing initial investment in 5G and efficiently promoting 5G constructions,” ZTE said.

   The verification, based on the real 5G commercial network environment, covers the basic functions of network selection and anchor carrier triggering, network management functions of rights management and northbound interface in the DT environment, as well as multi-dimensional deep network sharing capability verification, such as multi-vendor, multi-operator mobility, the company said.

   “The co-build/co-share mode is capable of providing the broadband multi-operator 5G services on the same 5G base station, and reasonably allocating spectrum resources based on user requirements and service requirements. It fully demonstrates the system’s stability and outstanding performance, as well as its complete capacity for large-scale commercial use,” ZTE added.

   Compared with the original construction strategy that each operator implement to deploy its own 5G networks, 5G co-build/co-share sites across operators will effectively save investment in 5G networks, ZTE added. “By promoting the sharing of infrastructure between operators, the co-build/co-share mode can help operators build 5G networks with lower costs and more effective methods,” the vendor said.

   In September, China Telecom and China Unicom signed the 5G network co-build co-share framework cooperation agreement. As a strategic partner of China Telecom and China Unicom, ZTE said it fully supports their network construction and service operation. “ZTE has innovatively proposed a flexible ultra-broadband spectrum application solution to support the co-build co-share mode, which helps reduce infrastructure construction costs, thereby further realizing the economic and social value of 5G.”

   https://www.rcrwireless.com/20191113/5g/zte-china-telecom-unicom-complete-5g-co-build-co-share-verification

2. Huawei Is a Paralyzing Dilemma for the West–Western democracies are struggling to balance the geopolitical challenge of China with their need for 5G technology. A common approach is essential.

   Huawei, based in Shenzhen, is not owned by the state — being Chinese, it’s somewhere between collectively and privately owned. It was founded by Ren Zhengfei, who once worked as a researcher for the People’s Liberation Army. But he and his firm insist that Huawei never has built, nor ever would build, so-called “backdoors” into its equipment that would let it spy on, or sabotage, its customers’ networks.

   There are arguments for giving Huawei the benefit of the doubt. First, it tends to be cheaper than its rivals, which include the European companies Ericsson and Nokia Oyj. Second, it seems to be quicker. Earlier this year, Deutsche Telekom AG, a German cellphone operator, claimed that rolling out 5G without Huawei would delay its network by at least two years and add billions in cost.

   Then there’s the risk that excluding Huawei could antagonize China on trade and investment. In Germany, the bureaucracies opposed to Huawei are the spy agencies and the interior ministry, both tasked with security, whereas the economics ministry and the chancellery, both concerned with the overall Sino-German relationship, are more accommodating.

   Finally, there are the principles of fairness and economic openness. There’s no evidence that Huawei has spied on its customers. And part of what makes the West “western,” or at least liberal, is that it doesn’t close its markets to others without good reasons.

   Huawei’s critics, of course, have plenty of reasons for its exclusion. First, it’s implausible that any Chinese company can avoid becoming an arm of the state and the Communist Party. China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires all the country’s companies to “assist” in national intelligence, and to keep that assistance secret. An earlier law defines national security as including economics and culture.

   Second, 5G isn’t any old phone network. Unlike 4G, it’s the infrastructure for machines and devices to talk to one another on the so-called Internet of Things. If it works well, it will make entire cities “smart” and enable autonomous cars to drive themselves through them, all the while exchanging reams of data. Think of the human body: If 4G is the ears, 5G is the entire nervous system. Would you want China to have control over it?

   The fear is not overblown. Whoever provides the software and hardware for 5G will also have a head-start in eventually transferring that prowess into 6G and 7G. And once a technology is baked in, a simple software update could turn a harmless feature into a mole. A banal analogy would be your smartphone, when its maker schedules an update that adds emoticons but suddenly seems to drain the battery much faster — and all of this coincidentally just before the launch of a new model.

   So caution is advisable. Even at the risk of slowing down the roll-out, regulators would be wise to assure diversity among suppliers. They should also ring-fence the most sensitive parts of the infrastructure. Procurement rules can’t discriminate against individual companies, but they should establish criteria of trustworthiness. Suppliers that can’t fully meet them would be allowed to play only in the network’s periphery.

   Just as important, the western allies must coordinate their approach. It makes little sense for, say, Denmark to exclude Huawei while Germany next door includes it. Autonomous cars, trucks and boats, geo-tagged goods in containers, patients with heart monitors: All of these and other connected nodes on the network will be moving across the border, constantly communicating with different “clouds” of server computers in the background. The data have to be safe on both sides of the border.

   The West and its allies must therefore come to a common position on Huawei — and ideally on both China and data security generally. 5G and its successors have an almost utopian potential to solve many human problems. They also have a dystopian potential to turn our freedoms into a surveillance hell. The democracies need to confront this reality.

   https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-23/huawei-s-5g-networks-are-a-paralyzing-dilemma-for-the-west

3. China Unicom earnings report:

   China Unicom has overcome flat revenue growth to post an 11.1% increase in net earnings for 2019. The state-owned telco slashed opex by 22% and marketing cost by 5% to record a 11.3 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) full-year profit, it revealed today.

   But like rival China Mobile, the improved financial performance can’t hide its tepid top line growth. (See China Mobile reports 15.4M 5G customers.)

   “In 2019, the domestic telecommunications industry development experienced a short-term pain with weak revenue growth and pressure on industry value,” Chairman and CEO Wang Xiaochu said.

   Revenue of RMB290.5 billion ($41 billion) was off 0.1%, while service revenue increased just 0.3% to RMB264.4 billion ($37.3 billion).

   Unicom’s core mobile services business declined 5%, despite an extra 3.4 million customers, while its broadband segment shrank 1.7%.

   Over the last six years China Unicom’s gross revenue has increased just 2% as first its voice and now its data businesses felt the impact of increased competition and government-mandated price-cutting.

   As signs of improvement, Unicom pointed to its 11% increase in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) and the rise of 3.5 points in EBITDA as a percentage of service revenues.

   It also stressed the gains in its emerging enterprise services.

   The industrial Internet unit grew by 43% and now accounts for 12% of total services sales. IT services revenue reached RMB10 billion ($1.4 billion), up 78% year-on-year, while the IoT business grew 46%, to RMB3 billion ($420 million).

   The cloud and big data segments, while still small, each more than doubled sales.

   The company also said it is reaping the benefit of the network sharing partnership struck with China Telecom last September.

   The two telcos had jointly saved RMB10 billion ($1.4 billion), Unicom said, enabling it to invest RMB29.7 billion ($4.2 billion) in its mobile networks – up 59% from the previous year – as it readied its 5G network ahead of national launch last November.

   https://www.lightreading.com/asia/china-unicom-boosts-earnings-but-sales-remain-flat/d/d-id/758391?

4. Actively executed new vision with remarkable achievement in the “co-build and co-share” of 5G network In September 2019, the Company entered into a cooperation agreement with China Telecom to jointly build one 5G access network across the country.

   While significantly saving capital expenditure, the Company would enjoy the doubling of 5G network coverage, bandwidth, capacity and transmission speed, providing users with better experience. Currently, the two companies (China Unicom and China Telecom) shared 50,000 5G base stations and jointly saved investment costs of RMB10 billion.

   In the future, the Company will leverage the advantages of “co-build and co-share” and invest steadily, precisely and dynamically on 5G network deployment, with due regard to the Page 4 of 5 technological progress, maturity of the value chain, as well as market and business demand, etc. While achieving material saving in capital expenditure and operating expenses, the Company would see its 5G network quality comparable with the leading operator. In addition, the Company will actively and comprehensively step up the “co-build and co-share” with China Telecom in areas such as 4G indoor distributed antenna systems, server rooms, optical fibre and pipelines to further enhance network advantages and corporate value.

   https://www.chinaunicom.com.hk/en/media/press/p200323.pdf

5. China Telecom, which has 10.73 million 5G subscribers, expects to spend 45.3 billion yuan ($6.4 billion) on 5G in 2020 – up from a thrifty RMB9.3 billion ($1.3 billion) last year.

   In its 2019 full-year results presentation, China Telecom said last year 5G comprised just 12% of its total capex of RMB77.6 billion ($11 billion). This year it is boosting total capital spending to RMB85 billion ($12 billion), of which 5G will account for 53%.

   “The company will push forward 5G network construction on all fronts,” said Chairman and CEO Ke Ruiwen.

   The company says it has already seen an uptick in ARPU from its 5G customers of around 10%, to RMB91.9 ($13). Each subscriber is consuming 13.2GB of data each month.

   It says it is aiming for a “5G-scale breakthrough” this year, targeting an additional 60–80 million subscribers.

   It built 40,000 5G basestations and co-shared another 20,000 with China Unicom in 2019, covering 50 cities under a network-sharing arrangement.

   As with rivals China Mobile and China Unicom, China Telecom’s 2019 numbers show some modest gains against a backdrop of zero growth. (See China Mobile reports 15.4M 5G customers and China Unicom boosts earnings but sales remain flat.)

   Ke said the company had “capitalized firmly on the invaluable opportunities arising from the digital transformation of the economy and society, as well as 5G commercialization.”

   It posted a 3.3% fall in net profit to RMB20.5 billion ($2.9 billion) on flat operating revenues of RM375.73 billion ($53.2 billion).

   Service revenue improved 2%, including a 4.7% bump in mobile services, but the wireline business shrank by 0.4%. The information and application services segment, which includes cloud, data center and IoT, grew 5% and now accounts for 23% of operating revenues.

   https://www.lightreading.com/asia/china-telecom-plans-5x-boost-in-5g-capex/d/d-id/758426?

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