Even with FDD licenses, China Unicom and China Telecom still cannot beat China Mobile

Since the issuance of TD-LTE licenses, there has been constant gossip about when the FDD licenses will be issued. Recently, there is news that one year after the issuance of TD-LTE licenses, China will issue formal FDD licenses. Regarding this news, there is a recent article titled " How will China Mobile 4G respond to the upcoming issuance of FDD licenses? " which analyzes this and believes that China Mobile's 4G will be strongly impacted by China Unicom and China Telecom's FDD. Unfortunately, the article is full of common sense errors, so it is necessary to analyze it to see where the mistakes are.

Mistake 1: “China Mobile was the first to obtain the TDD-LTE trial commercial qualification and seized the market more than half a year in advance”

Let's look at the first question first. How long does China Mobile have a time window? The author gives a time of half a year. Why do you say that? The author believes that from the time China Mobile obtained the TD-LTE license in December last year to the time China Unicom and China Telecom obtained the FDD-LTE/TD-LTE converged networking licenses in 16 cities in June this year, it was a total of half a year, so China Mobile's time window was exactly half a year.

However, the actual situation is that China Mobile had already begun to build TD-LTE base stations in many cities across the country in the name of test networks a few years ago. By the time TD-LTE licenses were issued in December last year, China Mobile had built more than 200,000 TD-LTE base stations across the country, and some areas had even begun to issue numbers. Although this illegal behavior was stopped by the local communications management bureaus, it also indirectly reflects the level of China Mobile's network coverage. As of June 27 this year, China Unicom and China Telecom only obtained hybrid networking licenses for 16 cities. In contrast, China Mobile has already covered more than 300 cities across the country. Under the premise that the FDD license is far away, China Mobile's leading time window has already exceeded 2 years, and is by no means as short as half a year as the author said.

Mistake 2: “Once the FDD licenses are issued, China Mobile’s monopoly in the 4G market will be broken.”

Let's look at the second question. Will the monopoly of China Mobile 4G be broken because of the FDD license? The author believes that it will be, for three reasons. First, many cities have opened up FDD 4G services in violation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's permission. Second, China Unicom and China Telecom can upgrade from 3G to 4G at a low cost through software upgrades. Third, China Mobile's poor 3G experience will also have a negative impact. But is this really the case? To answer this question, we must first look at what the FDD trial commercial license is.

The so-called 40-city trial commercial license, as the name implies, means that China Unicom and China Telecom can provide mobile phone cards with 4G functions in these 40 cities, and the mobile phones sold can also use the 4G function. If it is other cities outside the 40 cities, due to policy restrictions, not only can the 4G function not be enabled on the mobile phones sold, but the mobile phone cards also do not support the 4G function. In this case, why can the author still use the FDD network in non-pilot cities? The answer is simple, roaming. Taking my hometown of Fuzhou as an example, both Fuzhou Unicom and China Telecom can sell and access mobile phones that support FDD-LTE. With an FDD mobile phone connected to the network in Fuzhou, I can roam and use it within the coverage area of ​​the FDD network in major cities across the country. This has nothing to do with whether FDD numbers are allowed in this place.

So is it really possible to upgrade FDD only by software? The answer is obviously no. Most people can tell the difference between 3G and 4G just from the literal meaning. 3G (third generation mobile communication technology) and 4G (fourth generation mobile communication technology) are completely different in technology. It is absolutely impossible to upgrade WCDMA and CDMA2000 based on CDMA to LTE technology based on OFDM and MIMO by software upgrade alone. The only way to upgrade to LTE is to add new hardware equipment. This is just like a mobile phone that only supports 3G cannot be turned into a 4G mobile phone by software upgrade, because 3G and 4G are completely different in terms of chips and signal processing modules.

Will the issuance of FDD licenses have a strong impact on China Mobile's 4G market development? The answer is still no. Due to lack of funds and the fact that broadband and 4G are under attack from all sides, China Unicom and China Telecom are completely unable to build a 4G network that can compete with China Mobile's 4G. With limited network coverage, their competitiveness is naturally greatly reduced. They have already lost the 4G war before it even started.

The author believes that the 4G networks of the three major operators will disconnect the 4G network when providing voice call services. China Unicom and China Telecom will fall back to the 3G network, while China Mobile will fall back to the 2G network due to the imperfect 3G network coverage. This will greatly affect the user experience of China Mobile 4G. However, the author ignores the reality that although China Mobile's 3G coverage is poor, its 2G network coverage still has an advantage among the three operators. Although it may not exceed Telecom's CDMA network, it still has certain advantages compared to Unicom's 2G network. Although China Mobile's calls will switch back to the 2G network, this will not have much impact on the call experience of mobile users. It can be said that the point raised by the author will not affect the experience of mobile users.

Mistake 3: China Mobile missed out on FDD license

The author believes that China Mobile will never get an FDD license. However, judging from the policy trends of the three operators, hybrid networking is still a trend. Facing international pressure, China Mobile has applied to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for the issuance of an FDD license. If the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology agrees to issue FDD licenses to the three operators, then the shortcomings of China Mobile mentioned by the author will no longer exist, and there will be no unfavorable situation.

Summarize:

Today, when TD-LTE is fully mature, China Mobile has completely monopolized more than 90% of the 4G market. Even if FDD licenses are issued now, China Mobile will not be able to meet rivals. It is absurd to expect China Unicom and China Telecom to defeat China Mobile with FDD. Not only that, in terms of technology and experience, there is not much difference between TD-LTE and FDD-LTE (Editor: According to Qualcomm's 2011 report, "TDD can provide better downlink data service capabilities, while FDD provides better coverage"). There is no doubt that if there is no policy change, China Mobile will continue to maintain its absolute advantage in 4G.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.