Sihai network

When will China Mobile exit 2G network

Sihai network: Unicom issued an internal notice yesterday, and will officially start 2G off grid work. A provincial company has been carrying out 2G base station frequency reduction and off grid service switching activities, and plans to close 101 low traffic base stations. At the same time, other multi provincial Unicom companies are strictly prohibited from developing 2G business and actively deploy 2G network service withdrawal. This has to worry Chinese mobile users. When will China Mobile exit 2G network? Will China Mobile close 2G network? In fact, 2G network withdrawal is natural in many people's eyes, which is mainly based on several considerations.

First of all, the number of users has declined dramatically. With the popularization of 3G and 4G networks, the number of 2G users has declined rapidly. For example, in terms of Unicom's data, at present, the number of Unicom users has reached 280 million, of which the number of 2G users is about 5 million, accounting for 1.8%. Therefore, even if Unicom closes the 2G network, the impact will not be too great.

Secondly, the profit margin of 2G business is too low. Compared with 3G and 4G business, the tariff standard of 2G business is much lower. There are not many users, even small profits and high sales. The annual revenue brought to the company is very limited. In addition, the State Council issued a document last year calling for the cancellation of long-distance roaming charges, which further reduced the profits of 2G business.

Finally, the maintenance of 2G network hardware equipment is more difficult. With the popularity of 3g4g, network hardware manufacturers also turn their main business to new upgraded products. There are problems in the maintenance and parts supply of old 2G equipment. This in turn increases the cost of operations.

For these reasons, it's easy to exit 2G business and invest resources in 4G and 5g in the future. Unicom was the first to choose to do so.

What about China Mobile? There is no essential difference between China Mobile and China Unicom in the big environment. We should do the same, but the actual situation is more complicated.

First of all, the number of 2G mobile users is still very large, and it will cause incalculable impact to withdraw from the network. According to the data, China Mobile still has more than 200 million 2G users, and this order of magnitude Mobile has no way to shut down 2G network only by its own will.

2G network still has a high utilization rate in some remote areas, and the actual situation in these areas also makes it difficult for 3G and 4G networks to enter, so it is impossible to replace 2G network with new network. In order to ensure the normal communication in this part of the area, the government will not allow the mobile to withdraw from the network.

In addition, some people who do not need the network still choose 2G even if they can use 4G network, because 2G service charge is cheaper than 4G.

Secondly, in addition to the large number of 2G users, one reason why mobile didn't shut down 2G network is that the new Internet of things market has new demand for 2G network.

For the Internet of things, the requirement of coverage is much higher than the requirement of network speed, which is the advantage of mobile 2G network. Because Internet of things services such as POS and bike sharing require a small amount of data to be transmitted, 2G network is already competent, but it is required to be able to transmit signals everywhere.

Only 2G is enough for POS

Considering the cost, the price of 2G module is only a fraction of that of 4G module. These Internet of things enterprises will give priority to 2G network when choosing, which on the contrary, will give birth to a new market demand.

Therefore, in 2017, the number of 2G base stations of China Mobile did not decrease, but increased by 30000.

Of course, this is for the enterprise market. In the face of the consumer market, China Mobile is still actively guiding users to transfer from 2G to 4G, during which it has also used many incentives. For example, we are speeding up 4G fee reduction and providing subsidies. At the same time, we are gradually closing some low-cost 2G packages to catch up with users on 4G services. According to the data, China Mobile has nearly 700 million 4G users.

However, no matter how to stimulate the growth of 4G, China Mobile cannot completely withdraw from 2G market for a long time, which is not only a policy consideration, but also a market choice.