context: Beijing has fast-tracked costly 5G roll-out as it hopes to start applications (such as autonomous vehicles) ahead of other countries. About 700,000 base stations are now online: world-leading but still less than a tenth of what is needed for nationwide coverage. The focus seems to be shifting to developing applications. Targets for 2021 are lower than original estimates. Huawei may also struggle to supply equipment given Washington's export restrictions.
600,000 base stations will be built in 2021, primarily in major cities, Xiao Yaqing 肖亚庆 Minister of Industry and IT announced at the 2021 work conference of his ministry, which was held 28 Dec 2020. Additionally, special 5G network pilots will be rolled out, covering 20 major industrial application scenarios across ten sectors, notes Xiao, and new plans will promote millimetre wave (mmWave) frequencies.
All prefecture-level municipalities have 5G, said Wen Ku 闻库 MIIT (Ministry of Industry and IT) spokesperson at a 24 December State Council press conference, adding
- about 580,000 base stations were built in 2020
- of which 330,000 were co-developed stations
- over 140 million 5G phones were sold between January and November 2020
- over 200 million devices were connected to the 5G network
- more application scenarios are emerging
Looking ahead, adds Wen, MIIT will focus on
- infrastructure roll-out
- promote not only scaled, but also demand-driven and business-driven 5G networks
- improve the planning and capacity of supporting data centres
- applications
- build up business capacity among telcos
- encourage coordination between telcos and solution providers
- R&D
- promote R&D and experimentation of new technologies like edge computing
- foster R16-based applications and development of R17 and R18 (CP note: referring to batches of international 5G standards)
- commerce 6G vision research
Local governments should look beyond infrastructure to foster application development, notes Wen.