China counting down to 5G commercialization

HANGZHOU - Downloading a 6-gigabyte file in less than two seconds using 5G technology is not a far stretch, as China is preparing for the commercialization of the next generation of mobile communication technology.

During the Fourth World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, this week, Huawei shared the honors with other tech giants such as Apple, Alibaba, Baidu and Microsoft at the World Leading Internet Scientific and Technological Achievement awards.

Huawei will launch a smartphone which supports 5G communication in 2019 with a self-developed chip, according to Xu Zhijun, rotating CEO of the company.

Currently, 5G standards are still under development by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Last October, Huawei achieved a speed of 27Gbps in 5G field tests using polar codes for channel coding. Huawei's polar coding was approved as part of the global standards for 5G.

As well as Chinese high-tech companies, its telecom operators are also eager to participate in formulating 5G global standards and promote commercialization.

Bi Qi, chief technical officer at the China Telecom Research Institute, said Chinese telecom carriers have invested heavily in 5G, carrying out tests in several major cities.

China Mobile, the world's largest telecom carrier by subscribers, has been devoted to developing 5G technology, and plans to launch a fully commercialized 5G network in 2020. ( The company will also begin a pre-commercial 5G service next year and deploy more than 10,000 5G base stations by 2020, according to Sha Yuejia, vice president of China Mobile.

The world's largest 5G test field with about 30 telecom base stations has already been established in Beijing's Huairou district. China Mobile, Huawei, ZTE as well as a number of foreign companies have completed China's second phase of 5G testing.

China is expected to be the world's largest 5G market by 2025, according to a report by GSMA Intelligence, a global mobile think tank, and China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).

The CAICT predicted that 5G will drive 6.3 trillion yuan ($946.8 billion) of economic output in China by 2030.

Wen Ku, director of the telecom development department at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said China has started its third phase of 5G technical tests, and will increase efforts on network planning, systems, chips and other products to get pre-commercial 5G service ready as soon as possible.

Global telecom carriers will invest 3.3 trillion yuan in mobile infrastructure by 2020, said John Hoffman, CEO and director of GSMA, adding that up to 500 billion yuan will come from China.

According to a Qualcomm report, the emerging 5G mobile communications technology is expected to generate $3.5 trillion of output and 22 million jobs in the global telecom industry by 2035.