China has named the four companies to receive 5G commercial licenses. They are three network operators — China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom — and one cable network company, China Broadcasting Network.
This announcement was made some days ago by the country’s telecoms authority, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
5G is the next-generation cellular network that offers faster data transfer speed and could enhance technologies such as autonomous driving, remote medical diagnosis and mobile payments.
South Korea, the US, Australia and the UK have launched initial commercial 5G services. However it is expected that the scale of China’s market is likely to dwarf the combined size of those economies, negating any first-mover advantage.
“This marks China’s official entry to the 5G era,” Huawei Technologies, which has up to a 50 per cent share of the country’s telecoms equipment market, said in a statement on Thursday. “Huawei will fully support Chinese operators to build 5G [networks] with comprehensive end-to-end 5G capabilities. We believe that in the near future, China’s 5G will lead the world.”
China Telecom said in a statement it believes “that the issuance of the 5G service operation permit facilitates the construction of Digital China and social economic development, which is of great significance to the telecommunications industry and the company’s achievement of high-quality development.”
China Mobile said it would press ahead with its “5G+” plan. Sweden’s equipment supplier Ericsson said the announcement was positive news for China and hoped that “in the process of 5G commercial implementation [in China], Ericsson can play a greater role.”
According to a study published in March by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a research institute under the MIIT, China’s 5G capital spending is estimated to range from 900 billion yuan to 1.5 trillion yuan (US$130.2 billion to US$217 billion) between 2020 and 2025.
Currently five companies sell 5G radio hardware and 5G systems for carriers – Huawei, ZTE, Nokia, Samsung and Ericsson.
This seems like a boost to Chinese based Huawei who has been facing hard times in the US as it has been blacklisted over national security concerns
Commenting on the announcement, Huawei said it will “fully support” Chinese operators to build 5G infrastructure.
“(We) believe that in the near future, China’s 5G will lead the world,” Huawei said on Weibo.
Huawei signed a deal with Russian telecom company MTS on Wednesday to develop a 5G network in the country over the next year, on the sidelines of a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
The firm has also signed a draft agreement with the African Union that includes cooperation in 5G communications.
