The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially responded to the slowdown in 4G network speed: There is only one truth!

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If the issue of slowing 4G network speed had not been frequently on the hot search, I would have thought it was just my personal special case and almost replaced it with the iPhone 6S that I planned to pass down to my family.

In the past six months, everyone has been discussing the issue of "4G speed reduction". I believe many people have similar experiences, that is, the 4G network speed seems to have slowed down, and sometimes it will jump directly to 3G. In an online survey initiated by the media and participated by 64,000 people, 64.6% of netizens chose the option that the 4G speed is "obviously slower".

As the Internet speed slows down, everyone will definitely point the finger at the operators, believing that the operators have limited the speed of 4G networks in order to speed up the promotion of 5G networks.

However, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom all denied reducing the 4G network speed, but how could netizens believe it so easily?

Therefore, it was the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that came out to respond this time.

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The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology responded through the Chinese government website:

Overall, the national 4G network speed has remained stable recently, but there may be some areas and periods of decline. The main reason is that the growth of 4G user traffic and the improvement of network support capabilities are not fully matched.

But why do we feel that 4G network speed has slowed down? Why does the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology say so? Are there really no tricks by the operators?

Today, let us take a closer look at the truth behind "4G network speed slows down"!

Is 4G really getting slower?

In response to our report of a drop in 4G network speed, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology chose to "slap us in the face" with data this time.

It is said that they have comprehensively analyzed monitoring data from multiple channels, including the domestic third-party speed testing platform Broadband Development Alliance, the international speed testing organization speedtest, and the monitoring systems of three telecom operators.

For example, data from the Broadband Development Alliance shows that the national average 4G download speed was 24Mbps in the third quarter of 2019 and 23.6Mbps in the second quarter; speedtest data shows that the national average 4G download speed was 48.8Mbps in October and 45.3Mbps in September.

So overall, the speed of 4G network is actually increasing, but why do we feel that the speed is slowing down? Does the construction of 5G network really have no effect on the speed of 4G network?

Maybe the truth of the matter is more complicated.

First of all, the construction of 5G networks does have an impact on 4G networks at this stage because of spectrum issues.

At the end of 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clarified the 5G spectrum allocation plan for the three major domestic operators:

-China Telecom obtained 3400MHz-3500MHz 5G trial frequency resources;

-China Unicom obtained 3500MHz-3600MHz 5G trial frequency resources;

-China Mobile has obtained 5G trial frequency resources in the 2515MHz-2675MHz and 4800MHz-4900MHz bands.

This is where the problem comes in. In the early days of 4G, 2500-2690MHz (the resources allocated to China Mobile this time) was partially allocated to the three major operators through TDD for 4G network construction, and this time it was packaged and given to China Mobile for 5G, which means that the 4G equipment deployed in this area needs to be cleared and replaced. It is understood that the scale of equipment deployed in this area by China Unicom and China Mobile is about 10,000 stations, and China Mobile will be involved in more. The impact of the clearance is that the base station capacity is insufficient and the network speed is affected.

Therefore, from the perspective of spectrum resources, 5G construction has, to a certain extent, created competition for 4G resources. With fewer spectrum resources and if the network wants to be faster, the only way is to find other ways.

As we are entering the 5G era, all operators are preparing for 5G networks. In order to save resources, the resources for building 4G base stations will definitely be tilted towards 5G, but the number of 4G users and traffic consumption are still rising. This also leads to what the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said: the growth of 4G user traffic and the improvement of network support capabilities are not fully matched.

This is indeed a problem for the operators. In order to attract more users, they have started to offer "unlimited data packages".

Unlimited data packages, as the name suggests, allow netizens to surf the Internet without restrictions. This is of course a good thing for heavy Internet users like me, but the result after it became popular is that people are too lazy to even connect to Wi-Fi and use data without restraint. Anyway, you will pay the same amount whether you use more or less.

I believe everyone has experienced this situation, but if everyone does this, the 4G network will eventually be overloaded, and the speed shared by each person will naturally be affected. This is also why the current unlimited data packages are not really "unlimited data" and are even tending to be cancelled.

Is there any solution from the operator?

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According to Xinhua News Agency, in August 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology interviewed three basic operators regarding the slowdown of 4G network speed reported by the public. Wen Ku, Director of the Information and Communications Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will guide operators to actively carry out network expansion and upgrading, increase supervision, continue to maintain and transform 4G networks, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of users.

But objectively speaking, it is also difficult for operators. Going all out to develop 5G will affect the experience of 4G users. If 5G is developed slowly, they will be overtaken by their peers. It is really difficult.

So I don’t think the operators will do the rumor that they will “limit the speed of 4G in order to develop 5G”. But objectively speaking, domestic operators do have pressure to guide users to use 5G networks.

According to the announcement of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the target for domestic operators in 2019 is to build more than 150,000 5G base stations. Based on this data, local governments are still constantly "increasing the target". For example, the Guangzhou government stated that Guangzhou will build more than 20,000 base stations in 2019.

Especially after the issuance of 5G commercial licenses last year, the progress of 5G construction in China has accelerated sharply. By the end of 2019, the three major domestic operators had put into use more than 126,000 5G base stations in total. It is expected that by 2020, China will deploy more than 400,000 5G base stations. But so far, how many 5G users are there in China?

The official data is about 3 million, but if we put the time point before August last year, the number may be only a few thousand.

It seems to be booming, but there are actually some problems hidden behind it.

According to industry insiders, because there are too few 5G users, many base stations will be powered off and shut down once they are built and tested to save electricity costs.

On the other hand, since many key technologies of 5G terminals are not yet mature, the manufacturing cost of 5G mobile phones remains high. 5G mobile phones are in small quantities and high in price, so it is naturally difficult to achieve large-scale sales.

Third, for users, there are no killer applications for the current 5G network. It just has a faster network speed, which is not very attractive. Users can't use their mobile phones to download large games every day to experience the 5G network.

Therefore, a contradiction has arisen. On the one hand, operators have invested a lot of money to build a certain scale of 5G network (according to industry insiders, this is largely due to market and policy pressures). On the other hand, due to various reasons, it is difficult to form a certain scale of 5G users. This contradiction directly leads to the inability of operators to obtain benefits in a timely manner for their huge investment. In simple terms, operators cannot make money by leaving idle base stations, which makes operators feel anxious.

However, with the expected large-scale implementation of 5G technology in 2020, I believe that operators will soon be able to get out of the predicament, and we as users will be able to enjoy a better network experience.

In addition, the deployment of 5G networks in the future will be based on independent networking (SA). By then, 5G will take the 5G road and 4G will take the 4G road, without interfering with each other. How great it would be.

Why is 5G worth looking forward to?

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When 5G was first launched, there were many people saying that 5G is useless. They said that 4G speed is enough, so why do we need 5G?

I wonder if the people who hold this view are the same people who said that "4G is useless" back then. If so, I would like to ask: "Isn't 4G good now?"

The most intuitive thing is that without 4G, how can we watch Douyin, Kuaishou, and video chat with people on the streets? These are scenarios that only appeared after 4G was fully popularized and mature, and they are also something we did not anticipate in the 3G era.

Before 5G, from 1G to 4G, all existed to serve the purpose of communication between "people". 5G is mainly to serve the communication needs between "things and things" and "people and things".

Therefore, the value that 5G can bring to society in the future is definitely not just faster Internet speeds, smoother video viewing, and faster downloads. If that were the case, it would not be of much use to us. As a technology, it itself is not worthy of public attention.

But what is really worth looking forward to is the capabilities that 5G will bring to future social scenarios, or in other words, it will open up a brand new future.

But back to reality, we must also admit that these are still in our conception and fantasy. The level that current technology can achieve is still very superficial and crude. Or slowly we find that 5G capabilities cannot meet our fantasies, and we still need 6G, 7G...