Mobile phone manufacturers are scrambling to seize the market, where has 5G development reached?

Today, the National Language Resource Monitoring and Research Center released the top ten new words in Chinese media in 2019, and "the first year of 5G" was on the list.

During this year, the upgrading of 5G mobile phones has been the focus of people's attention.

Since the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued 5G commercial licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Broadcasting Corporation on June 6 this year, 5G mobile phones have gradually entered the public eye. Mobile phone manufacturers continue to receive news about 5G:

• In July, Huawei Mate 20x 5G mobile phone was officially released;
• In August, ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G version was officially launched;
• In August, Samsung officially launched its first 5G mobile phone in the Chinese market - Galaxy Note10+5G;
• In August, China Mobile's Pioneer X1 was first launched on JD.com;
• In August, vivo iQOO Pro 5G was released, bringing the price of 5G mobile phones down to less than 4,000 yuan for the first time;
• In September, vivo released its second 5G phone, NEX 3;
• On December 10, Xiaomi released the Redmi K30 Pro, the cheapest 5G mobile phone in China.

At the same time, the three major domestic telecom operators officially launched the commercial use of 5G packages in November, marking the beginning of 5G mobile phones entering thousands of households in China.

Currently, the sales volume of smartphones has entered a stage of growth bottleneck. According to the shipment data of China's smartphone market in the third quarter of 2019 released by IDC, the shipment volume of China's smartphone market in that quarter was approximately 98.9 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 3.6%, and it is still in a downward trend.

Major mobile phone manufacturers are "betting" on 5G and are also looking for new growth space in other areas.

On December 10, OPPO founder and CEO Chen Mingyong said at the OPPO Future Technology Conference, "In the era of the interconnection of all things, there will no longer be pure mobile phone companies. OPPO will invest 50 billion yuan in research and development budget in the next three years, focusing on cutting-edge technologies such as 5G/6G, artificial intelligence, AR, and big data to build OPPO's technological moat."

Coincidentally, Xiaomi has announced the "mobile phone + IoT" dual engine and Huawei has announced the "full-scenario strategy" based on 5G. They have all placed their hopes for growth on the Internet of Everything, and 5G is the most critical link among them.

The war over 5G mobile phones is about to break out.

Lv Tingjie, executive vice president of the China Information Economics Society and professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said in his recognition of the value of 5G, "This revolution brought about by 5G, which subverts traditional Internet applications, is called the second half of the Internet by some people, which is the transformation process from consumer Internet to industrial Internet.

The Imagination of 5G

The debate about 5G in the market has not subsided.

Some supporters believe that it is an unprecedented technological revolution that has greatly improved various network indicators; some opponents believe that 5G has not yet found a suitable application scenario, people’s demand for 5G is not as strong as imagined, and it is not appropriate to invest a large amount of money immediately.

Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, once said, "The role of 5G has actually been exaggerated. In fact, human society does not have such an urgent need for 5G now."

So what exactly is 5G? And what is its real value?

Simply put, 5G is the fifth generation of communication technology, which has three major characteristics: ultra-wideband, ultra-high speed, and ultra-low latency.

In the 4G era, with the rapid growth of business traffic, various industries are constantly exploring new network applications, and communication networks are facing tremendous pressure to expand capacity. The three major performances of 5G networks can enable existing networks to break through capacity bottlenecks, which is conducive to the cultivation of new business models in various industries.

From the development history of telecom operators, 1G realized analog voice communication; 2G realized digital voice communication; 3G realized multimedia communication such as pictures in addition to voice; 4G realized local high-speed Internet access. What 5G will create is to allow people and physical media to connect with each other anytime, anywhere.

That is to say, before 5G, from 1G to 4G, all existed to serve the purpose of communication between "people". 5G, on the other hand, is mainly to serve the communication needs between "things and things" and "people and things". This is the first time that humans have combined the "Internet of Things" with the "Internet of People", and it has also changed people's perception of traditional communications from the essential structure.

The current method of implementing 5G technology is actually quite "simple and crude". In simple terms, it is mainly achieved by expanding the occupied frequency band, increasing the density of investment in base stations, and improving the chip data processing speed.

According to the current transmission rate standards, if 5G is to cover the areas currently covered by 4G worldwide, the number of base stations must be at least five times that of 4G, that is, 15 million to 20 million 5G base stations. Therefore, from the perspective of infrastructure costs and actual demand, it is not realistic to build a 5G network covering the entire world in the short term.

From the perspective of historical development, most new technologies are based on a good theoretical foundation before they try to break through and innovate. Therefore, in theory, if we can solve the current large-scale antenna usage problem of 5G, achieve the unification of new multi-addresses, achieve unified planning of high-frequency band communications, and achieve further breakthroughs in new multi-carrier radars and advanced coding modulation, the possibility of large-scale application is still very huge.

In the future, cloud computing, AI, drones, VR, and high-definition video in the technology ecosystem will develop synchronously by utilizing the ultra-high speed of 5G.

By utilizing its ultra-wideband capability, a large number of terminal networks can be formed, making smart home and smart city life possible;

By taking advantage of its ultra-low latency, application scenarios such as driverless cars and remote surgery can be realized, and disruptive applications such as the Internet of Everything can be realized.

On the other hand, 5G is also an open, software-definable architecture for the Internet of Everything: there are different virtual network slices on this architecture to adapt to thousands of 5G application scenarios. In addition to communication between people, 5G will provide a platform to enable the IoT, build a full-dimensional information ecosystem with users at the center, and provide various possibilities and cross-border integration.

The application of 5G will no longer be limited to the consumer Internet, but will also combine the Internet of Vehicles, the Internet of Things, industrial manufacturing, etc., and automatically integrate them into a new ecosystem. In the establishment of the 5G ecosystem, whoever's operating system is more effective in connecting everything will have more say.

5G race among countries

According to a Qualcomm report, between 2020 and 2035, 5G's contribution to global GDP growth will be equivalent to an economy of the same size as India. By 2035, 5G will create $12.3 trillion in economic output worldwide.

Trump once said, "The transition from 4G to 5G is likely to be more revolutionary than incremental. First, consumers will notice that the network is faster and data download speeds will be almost instantaneous. Secondly, it is the first network to provide services for sensors, robots, self-driving cars and other devices. These devices will continuously provide each other with massive amounts of data, allowing factories, construction sites and even entire cities to operate with less human intervention at all times. This network will also allow virtual reality and artificial intelligence tools to be more widely used. Finally, 5G is also very valuable to intelligence agencies and cyber attackers."

This also reflects that 5G has not only penetrated into people's lives, but has also risen to the national strategic level. For the development of related industries and strategies, 5G has become a must-have for all countries.

According to the latest ranking of countries' 5G readiness by global telecommunications research firm Analysys Mason, the United States has risen from third last year to first place, tied with China, followed by South Korea, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Analysys Mason believes that the main reason why the United States can rise to the first place is the significant investment of the U.S. wireless industry in 5G networks, providing more spectrum for wireless operators and reforms to infrastructure policies.

The report noted that China maintains a significant infrastructure advantage, with more than 14 mobile information base stations for every 10,000 people, compared to 4.7 in the U.S. China has more than 5 base stations per 10 square miles, compared to 0.4 in the U.S.

The United States leads the world in millimeter wave and other types of high-frequency spectrum in urban areas, and also has the upper hand in low-frequency spectrum that is best suited for remote areas. However, when it comes to mid-band spectrum, which is most critical for 5G, the United States lags far behind other countries, including China.

In terms of 5G, my country currently has a certain first-mover advantage. As early as 2009, Huawei had already started early research on related technologies and demonstrated 5G prototype base stations to the outside world in the following years.

The 5G industry chain consists of upstream base station upgrades (including base station RF, baseband chips, etc.), midstream network construction, downstream product applications and terminal product application scenarios, including device raw materials, base station antennas, small and micro base stations, communication network equipment, optical fiber cables, optical modules, system integrators and service providers, operators and other sub-industries.

Each country has its own strengths in the development of the entire 5G industry. The general view in the industry is that in the development of 5G, Europe is strong in systems, the United States is strong in chips, and China is strong in comprehensive strength.

From the perspective of the entire industrial chain, the United States currently has a firm control over upstream chips. Important players in this field include giants such as Qualcomm and Nvidia, and downstream terminal Internet companies such as Apple and Google.

Among the three major coding candidate technologies for 5G, Qualcomm is the "leader" of LDPC technology. In a recent meeting, the entire share of 5G mobile broadband data channels was still won by LDPC represented by Qualcomm. In other words, the United States has laid a good foundation for the popularization of 5G in 2020.

Europe has made an indelible contribution to the development from 1G to 4G. Nokia, Ericsson and GSM networks, which were once popular all over the world, have all proved their legends. With the emergence of 5G, Europe has gradually lost its position as a global leader in mobile technology. However, in the global 5G standard projects, Europe still occupies 14 projects, ranking behind China.

In terms of 5G, China has spared no effort to achieve all-round coordination between policies and industries. According to the "China 5G Economic Report 2020", the Chinese government has incorporated 5G into the national strategy; secondly, China will be the world's largest 5G market, and by 2025, China will account for 30% of the world's connections; finally, it has comprehensive advantages in the industrial chain. As of May 2019, a total of 28 companies in the world have declared 5G standard essential patents, and the number of declarations by Chinese companies accounts for more than 30%, ranking first.

The “Three Major Mountains” of 5G Applications

Although there is only a 1G gap from 4G to 5G, in fact, 5G still faces many problems in achieving commercial popularity.

From a technical perspective, it is still difficult to unify global communication standards. As an emerging industry, industry standards have always been a "headache", and as the next generation of communication technology, 5G is no exception.

Out of considerations of national interests, everyone wants to take the initiative in order to compete for a dominant position in the construction of 5G standards. Therefore, the unification of global communication standards may still have a long way to go.

Take the recent 5G mobile phones for example. In terms of the basic technology of 5G, most people believe that NSA (non-standalone networking mode) is fake 5G. It is just a modification made on the original 4G base station, not the SA (standalone networking solution) that 5G really needs. Most of the first-generation 5G mobile phone products only support NSA.

According to Fu Liang, an employee of an operator interviewed by China Business News, "One of the core technologies of 5G is SA technology, but it is unlikely to realize SA technology in the short term. Because the SA technical standard has not yet been launched, it is expected that the standard will be available next year or later. The current 5G and 5G mobile phones are just transitional products in a transitional era. However, operators are doing the work of NSA. Some equipment, such as base stations, can be used on SA. If SA is not mature, NSA can also be used instead. Therefore, 5G mobile phone users can enjoy 5G's high download and upload speeds in the covered area."

In response to this issue, at the MWC2019 Shanghai Conference, China Mobile also made it clear that it would give priority to the development of SA independent networking solutions, and would ban NSA independent networking mobile phones from accessing the network from January 1, 2020; China Telecom made it clear in the 5G white paper released in 2018 that China Telecom will use SA independent networking as its target network solution, and give priority to SA independent networking solutions; China Unicom has not yet made it clear.

Secondly, in the field of mobile communications, spectrum resources are the core resources that drive industrial development. With the development of 5G, spectrum resources will become increasingly scarce.

According to data from Robotics Frontier, my country's spectrum demand is expected to reach 1490MHz-1810MHz in 2020; considering that the potential candidate frequency bands for IMT in the future mainly include 3300-3400MHz, 4400-4500MHz, 4800-4990MHz and 3400-3600MHz, it is not difficult to see that the contradiction between supply and demand of spectrum resources in the 5G era will be more prominent.

In addition, the price of 5G data packages is unlikely to be affordable in the short term. According to the 5G packages launched by China Mobile on October 31, the minimum monthly payment for individuals starts at 128 yuan, and the minimum monthly payment for family plans starts at 169 yuan.

According to existing online data, the three major domestic operators have launched the cheapest mainstream 5G packages in the world: South Korea's 8GB 5G package is about 270 yuan; Australia's 15G is about 250 yuan. Some netizens lamented, "Even if the Internet speed is fast, I still can't afford it!"

Therefore, the 5G traffic charges are likely to still discourage consumers in the short term.