China passes half a billion 5G subscriptions and adds at least 190k new 5G base stations in six months
- Reference: 1629440884
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/08/20/china_5g_progress/
- Source link:
The Register 's numbers come from repeating our exercise from [1]March 2021 , when we pored over annual reports from China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile, to find a total of 322 million 5G subscribers and 1,150,000 operating base stations.
As of yesterday, the three mega-carriers have all announced their results for the first half of the year, so we've repeated the exercise. Here are the results:
Carrier
5G subs total (millions)
New 5G subs in 2021 (millions)
5G base stations
New 5G base stations 2021
Total subscribers (millions)
China Mobile
251
86
501,000
111,000
946
China Unicom
113
42.2
460,000
80,000
310
China Telecom
131
44.5
460,000
80,000
362
Totals
495
172.7
1,421,000*
271,000
1,618
All three carriers also reported improvements in average revenue per user, revenue growth of nine per cent or more, and big profits. All reported billions of yuan spent on infrastructure.
Impressive, right?
[2]
Maybe not so much. For starters, China Unicom and China Telecom have accelerated their infrastructure-sharing arrangements, hence our asterisk on the total of operational base stations in the table above – the carriers are probably managing that many units, but there are fewer physical units in place.
[3]
[4]
The two have also started sharing their 4G infrastructure.
[5]China sets goal of running single-stack IPv6 network by 2030, orders upgrade blitz
[6]America tops ITU's Global Cyber Security Index, UK in tie for second with Saudi Arabia
[7]Huawei to America: You're not taking cyber-security seriously until you let China vouch for us
China Mobile is also collaborating on network builds. It teamed with China Broadcasting Network Corporation to share a network operating in the 700MHz band.
China Unicom reported decreased capital expenditure as a result, as did China Telecom. Supply chain issues were one reason for the dip, but the sheer scale of the existing 5G rollout and collaboration were also factors.
All three carriers were bullish about winning many more 5G subscribers, especially by targeting corporate customers.
[8]
China Mobile, for example, signed 900 contracts for provincial-level 5G projects and 452 deals for dedicated 5G networks. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/26/china_2020_5g_explosion/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YR99YoS4iJ2ZVLZAlfBVtAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YR99YoS4iJ2ZVLZAlfBVtAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YR99YoS4iJ2ZVLZAlfBVtAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/26/china_single_stack_ipv6_notice/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/30/america_global_cyber_security_index_2020/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/02/huawei_security_advice_to_usa/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YR99YoS4iJ2ZVLZAlfBVtAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: 5G?, Decent 4G and Voice Would be nice In Hertfordshire
If it wasn't for marketing, 5G would've been called 4G+ or 4G-edge. It's only a minor iteration. Not few base stations only needed a software update. ;-)
Re: 5G?, Decent 4G and Voice Would be nice In Hertfordshire
what type of 4G do you have? (phone, 4G wifi, external antenna etc.).
My parents get 30-50meg reliably from an EE 4G+ external antenna. They are 8 miles from the mast, but there is 'line-of-sight' that helps massively.
Curious to see what the new 700Mhz 5G spectrum provides, as on paper it should deliver 100-150meg speeds. Who knows
Re: 5G?, Decent 4G and Voice Would be nice In Hertfordshire
Just pointing out here that marketing also invented the megabit per second (Mbps, Mb/s) labeling. This is eight times less than the typical megabyte (MB) or megabyte per second (MBps, MB/s) from you computer.
Re: 5G?, Decent 4G and Voice Would be nice In Hertfordshire
For a serial link, at its most simple description for the original comms, bits are what are travelling over the connection. The early naming, I recall, was baud, for binary state serial transmission was equivalent to bits per second. Ignoring all error checking or packet overhead etc.
Bytes appeared in popular terminology because this was the size of a register in CPUs in early popular computing architectures, with an eight bit bus so data could be shifted around in parallel to 8 bit memory locations within the actual computer or over a parallel interface.
With my phone provider there are no 5G subscriptions as distinct from any other subscription. You need an updated SIM if yours is old, but these are just the standard SIM now. If your phone is 5G capable and 5G is available then you get a 5G service.
5G?, Decent 4G and Voice Would be nice In Hertfordshire
If EE are reading/watching or listening, having some decent 4g would be nice, not to mention decent Broadband speeds, having 16Mbps in Hertfordshire is so 1990s.