Chinese carriers have 771 million 5G users by end of November
Chinese telecommunications companies had installed a total of 3.28 million 5G base stations across the country as of the end of November, local media reported, citing official data.
This figure accounted for 28.5% of the total number of mobile base stations in China, according to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
In addition, the number of users in the mobile phone divisions of China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile reached a combined total of 1.73 billion as of the end of November, of which 771 million were 5G mobile phone users, a net increase of 214 million from the end of 2022, accounting for 44.7% of the total mobile phone users.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, a recent report showed that China’s telecommunications industry experienced a steady expansion from January to October.
Companies operating in the country’s telecommunications sector had total revenue of 1.42 trillion yuan ($199 billion), up 6.9 percent from a year earlier, the report said.
Of the total, sales from emerging areas such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, and Internet data centers increased 20.5% year-on-year to RMB 301.2 billion.
Broadband internet services recorded revenue of RMB219 billion in the first 10 months, up 9.3% year-on-year.
According to Wang Zhiqin, head of China’s 6G Promotion Team and vice president of the China Academy of Information and Communications Sciences, China aims to start commercializing 6G technology by 2030, and expects standard-setting for the technology to be achieved around 2025.
Wang recently pointed out that China began 6G technology experiments last year and is conducting research into 6G system architecture and technical solutions through 2023.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced in June that the Chinese government has allocated spectrum in the 6GHz frequency band for 5G and 6G services. The ministry noted that considering the advantages of coverage and capacity, the 6GHz spectrum is the only high-quality, wide-bandwidth resource in the mid-band, making the 6GHz band particularly suitable for the deployment of future 5G or 6G systems.
The ministry noted that the allocation of the 6GHz band will “help stabilize expectations in the 5G/6G industry.”
In a blog published at MWC23 Shanghai, GSMA’s head of spectrum, Luciana Camargos, highlighted the fact that China has designated the upper end of the 6GHz band for international mobile telecommunications (IMT) systems.
“China’s push towards the 6 GHz band is not surprising. Favorable spectrum policies for mid-band, especially 2.6 GHz and 3.5 GHz, are helping China deploy the world’s largest 5G network and put it on track to be the first country to reach 1 billion 5G connections in 2025,” Camargo said.
