The time has passed quickly, and 5G has been commercially available for three years.

Three years ago, many people were asking: What is 5G? Is 5G necessary?

Three years later, we can answer this question: 5G is a radio wave that connects Yongshu Reef of the Nansha Islands with the mainland of China, and it is also a fertile land for science and technology to help Longjiang Black Land achieve 19 years of continuous prosperity. 5G is not only a 500 meter underground and ground information security channel of Shanxi Xinyuan Coal Mine, but also a smart post on Mount Everest. 5G not only allows the Maonan people in Guangxi to sell their five spices local specialties to all parts of China, but also makes the cities with many buildings more intelligent.

From the islands and reefs in the south of the country to the Plains of thousands of miles in the north, from the deep mines to the towering Everest, from the prosperous countryside to the smart city... Three years later, we are proud to say: In the past three years of 5G commercial use, China has built the world's largest 5G co construction and sharing network, realizing the continuous coverage of key towns and regions above. 5G has accelerated its integration into all aspects of consumers’ production and life, benefiting people's livelihood, strengthening industries and giving full play to industries, and promoting China's transformation from a network power to a network power.

First of all, consumers are continuously benefiting from 5G commercial use. With the continuous improvement of 5G network construction, 5G mobile phones have become the first choice for more and more consumers. According to the data of China Academy of Information and Communications, from January to August 2022, the total mobile phone shipments in China's domestic market totaled 175 million, including 138 million 5G mobile phones, accounting for 78.9% of the mobile phone shipments in the same period. The price of 5G package is becoming more and more popular, and the per capita mobile traffic is increasing. "Traffic anxiety" has become a thing of the past. In the past three years of 5G commercial use, consumers’ mobile Internet experience has improved rapidly, and they can enjoy a better life of intelligent Internet together. Data shows that in the past three years, consumers’ monthly traffic has increased from 8.6GB at the end of 2019 to 15GB in September 2022. The unit price of business (voice, traffic, etc.) continues to decline, and the monthly expenditure of mobile users has remained at an average level of more than 50 Chinese yuan, basically unchanged. Consumers’ mobile Internet experience has been greatly improved. Taking mobile video services as an example, from 240P and 480P resolutions in the 3G era, to 720P and 1080P in the 4G era, to 4K and 8K videos in the 5G era, the popularity of 5G enables people to enjoy ultra-high definition video anytime and anywhere. In addition, 5G has made live broadcast more smooth, game experience has been upgraded iteratively, and online shopping and other consumption scenarios have also been profoundly changed.

Secondly, 5G commercial promotion enables operators to maintain steady income growth. In the past three years of 5G commercial use, the business income of operators has maintained a steady growth, and the 5G infrastructure level has continued to improve. In the first nine months of this year, the telecom business income of operators increased by 8.2% year on year, far exceeding the GDP growth level. At the same time, through 5G, Internet of Things, cloud, AI and other technologies, operators can more deeply serve the society, industry digitization, and open a larger market space. Not long ago, the financial reports released by the three major operators showed that the total number of 5G package users of the three major operators has exceeded 1 billion. As of September this year, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom had 251 million, 557 million and 201 million 5G package subscribers respectively. There is no doubt that 5G is becoming a new driving force for high-quality development of operators.

Finally, 5G enables thousands of businesses to make profits for society and industry. In the past three years of 5G commercial use, it has continuously accelerated the intelligent transformation of thousands of industries. From the intelligent mine in Inner Mongolia to the "black light factory" in Nanjing, from the 5G fully connected factory in Youngor to the 5G "neural network" in JD Logistics... At present, 5G has been applied in 15 industries in 20 categories of the national economy, and 39 industries in 97 categories. Especially after the launch of the Sailing Action Plan for 5G applications, 5G industry applications have the potential to start a prairie fire.

In terms of implementing social responsibility and promoting energy conservation and emission reduction, 5G has also made great achievements. For example, China Telecom and China Unicom jointly built and shared the largest 5G shared network in the world, opened nearly one million 5G shared base stations, and basically achieved continuous coverage of key villages and towns. On this basis, the two sides continued to deepen joint construction and sharing, and opened more than 800,000 4G shared base stations. At present, the accumulated investment has been saved by 240 billion Chinese yuan, the annual operating cost has been saved by more than 20 billion Chinese yuan, the electricity has been saved by more than 10 billion kilowatt hours, and the carbon emissions have been reduced by more than 6 million tons, which is a great feat of energy conservation and carbon reduction in the global communications industry. China Mobile and China Radio and Television have jointly built more than 480,000 700MHz shared 5G base stations.

There has always been a voice of doubt that Why does China want to build 5G in such a rapid and large-scale way? On August 10 of this year, at the main forum of the 2022 World 5G Conference, Liu Liehong, Chairman of China Unicom, said that if there is no 5G, carrying the same data traffic needs to build 2 to 3 times more 4G base stations." In the face of the people's yearning for a better life and the rapidly growing demand for mobile Internet, if we continue to invest in 4G, we will still have to spend so much money in the short term. And with the continuous growth of mobile Internet traffic, from the perspective of long-term evolution, investment protection, network building and optimization feasibility, investment in 5G is far better than that in 4G. Investing in 5G now means investing in the future.

Therefore, from the perspective of standard evolution, technology research, product development, spectrum allocation, network building mode, construction rhythm and other elements, we can confidently say that China's 5G development path is correct and can stand the test of time.