China says it has deployed 700,000 5G base stations this year; Huawei’s forecast
China has announced it has built nearly 700,000 5G base stations this year, exceeding its original target of 500,000, South China Morning Post reports. That’s more than twice the number of 5G base stations in the rest of the world combined, according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) vice-minister Liu Liehong.
The vice-minister said there are currently more than 180 million devices operating on China’s 5G network.
“The good infrastructure has spurred a range of new 5G-based applications,” Liu said in remarks reported by Chinese media Sina News. “For instance, the smart education sector has witnessed the emergence of new education models such as ultra-high-resolution, remote interactive teaching powered by 5G, immersive teaching with augmented and virtual reality technology and hologram classrooms during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
To achieve complete coverage, China will need 10 million 5G base stations in total, which involves an overall investment of CNY 2 trillion (approximately USD 280 billion) of investment, according to Zhang Yunyong, CPPCC member and president of the China Unicom Research Institute.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has singled out 5G networks and data centres as top priorities in the country’s plans to invest in “new infrastructure”. The next-generation network is considered a fundamental element of China’s new digital infrastructure, aimed at driving greater connectivity for consumers and businesses.
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The latest analysts’ estimate from Jefferies, put the total number of 5G base stations across the country at 650,000. Their data projected China’s three major telecommunications network operators to have up to 750,000 5G base stations by the end of this year.
Analysts said that although the 5G base station roll out has been impressive, it was still only a fraction compared with China’s huge base of 1.2 billion 4G users, creating a situation where consumers have been reluctant to upgrade to more costly 5G plans because there are no killer apps and must-have consumer services.
South Korea, the first country in the world to provide 5G services, has 115,000 base stations in operation, according to government data in April. The South Korean government recently announced that the number of 5G service users across the country reached 8.65 million in August.
The global 5G network infrastructure market is expected to nearly double to USD 8.1 billion in 2020, according a report from Gartner.
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Huawei Technologies expects 5G users to account for 20% of total mobile users in China and South Korea by the end of June 2021, Ryan Ding, president of Huawei’s carrier business group, said during a presentation at the company’s Global Mobile Broad Forum in Shanghai, China.
The executive said that 5G adoption was happening faster than some of the initial predictions in China, with operator China Mobile now having 130 million 5G subscribers, ahead of its target of 100 million for the year.
“5G is developing much faster than previous generations. Currently, there are more than 100 commercial 5G networks worldwide, and budget 5G mobile phones have dropped to CNY1,000 ($151). This is driving up the number of 5G users around the world, and leading carriers are already benefitting from 5G data plans. They are seeing an increase in the ARPU of 5G users through multi-metric service packages and upgraded services like 5G messaging and enriched calling,” Ding said.
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References:
5G users to account for 20% of China’s mobile base by June 2021: Huawei
5 thoughts on “China says it has deployed 700,000 5G base stations this year; Huawei’s forecast”
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I wonder if some of these base stations might be the equivalent of wireless access points for WiFi. More specifically, I am wondering if some of these might be devices that are simply put into a building and fed via broadband to provide local access? There would be construction required and it would be as simple as putting in a WiFi access point from an installation standpoint.
China has previously mischaracterized 4G users as 5G subscribers. Therefore, some of their so called “5G base stations” could indeed be WiFi access points.
With no real 5G use cases (like URLLC) available in China or South Korea, I don’t know if the number of 5G base stations makes any sense. Can those numbers be trusted? I wonder if the investment in 5G by those countries has been worth it or not.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order which restricts US companies from investing in Chinese firms owned or controlled by the military. Included in the list are two of China’s biggest telecoms players, China Mobile and China Telecom.
The sanctions are due to take effect on January the 11th and orders US investment firms and pension funds to divest their holdings in the listed companies over the next year. If additional companies are added to this list at a later date, US companies will only have 60 days to divest.
For some time now, China has been threatening its own ‘entity list’ to rival that of the US, which would place severe sanctions of US firms operating in China. However, no specific companies have thus far been revealed, leading many to speculate that the Chinese government would wait until the outcome of the US elections before making a final decision. Now, it seems they will wait until Trump’s presidency comes to a close, hoping to ride out the storm until Joe Biden can take office.
https://www.totaltele.com/507866/Latest-US-sanctions-on-China-shake-China-Mobile-China-Telecom
China says it had built more than 1 million 5G base stations by the end of August, as the nation steps up efforts to build a sound telecom infrastructure for widening the use of 5G in more sectors.
Zhao Zhiguo, spokesman of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said on Monday that China had built a total of 1.037 million 5G base stations by the end of August, covering all prefecture-level cities across the country and with 5G services available in more than 95 percent of counties and urban areas and 35 percent of towns and townships, China Daily reported .
From January to August this year, the shipments of 5G mobile phones in China reached 168 million units, marking a year-on-year increase of 80 percent. In August, 5G mobile phones accounted for 74 percent. —APP