This is the age of 5g.
In the past year, 5g information rivers converged, enterprises rose to the peak, and the intelligent world became extremely open. It is not only the soil in the information revolution, but also an important cornerstone to consolidate the status of scientific and technological innovation.
In the past year, 5g market competed:
International track, major giants compete for commanding heights in many fields;
Patent R & D, the global proportion of the Chinese camp has exceeded 50%;
Smart innovation, continuous business opportunities in application scenarios and successive production;
In the mobile phone market, the segmentation competition in the 100 yuan range is particularly fierce;
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In the past year, the 5g talk column, jointly launched by Sina Technology and Sina 5g, chatted with dozens of famous people in politics, enterprises and academia about the development and implementation of communication, answering questions and dispelling doubts for readers. At the same time, 5g great stride will explore the growth path of Chinese communication enterprises for readers.
Today, a year later, the information comes and is integrated into all industries. When more people touch 5g, what sparks will collide?
How to solve the capital problem of building 5g with 100 billion yuan?
In June 2019, the Ministry of industry and information technology issued 5g commercial licenses to four operators including China Mobile, which can be described as opening the 5g era in China; On October 31, 2019, the three operators jointly announced the launch of 5g package, further accelerating the pace of 5g commercial use.
However, the problem facing operators is that the construction cost of 5g is extremely high. Just the day before the launch of the 5g package, Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, admitted at the high level Forum on the development of China's information and communication industry that the construction cost of 5g is still relatively high and takes time. A 5g base station is about three times that of 4G. " The investment is large, but the lack of motivation allows operators to build better, and the business model is not clear. "
According to the financial report of China Mobile in 2019, China Mobile has built a total of 50000 5g base stations in 2019, and the corresponding 5g capital expenditure is 24 billion yuan; In 2020, China Mobile plans to build 250000 5g base stations, and the corresponding 5g capital expenditure will reach 100 billion yuan.
What is the concept of 100 billion yuan? In 2019, China Mobile's net profit was 106.641 billion yuan, that is, in 2020, China Mobile will almost spend the whole year's net profit in 2019 to invest in the construction of 5g. In 2019, China Mobile is still in the situation of peak revenue growth and sharp decline in net profit.
In fact, the construction cost of 5g base station is only a part of the 5g cost, and the other part includes operating costs such as electricity charges.
At the end of 2019, Li Zhengmao, then vice president of China Mobile, said publicly that 5g and 4G would coexist for a long time, and China Mobile would not give up 4G network. He admitted that the power consumption of a single 5g base station is three times that of 4G, and the industry has made little progress in power consumption. He also called on the government to introduce preferential policies for base station power supply, so as to reduce the power consumption cost of 5g base station and promote the construction of 5g network.
In order to solve the investment problem, China Mobile is also trying a variety of solutions. One direction is the co construction and sharing being tried by China Unicom and China Telecom.
At the beginning of this year, the Ministry of industry and information technology issued a license for the use of 5g test frequency in the 4.9ghz band to China Radio and television, the fourth operator, and agreed to deploy 5g networks in 16 cities such as Beijing. It is worth noting that the 4.9ghz band awarded by China Radio and television was consistent with that of China Mobile, which triggered rumors that China Radio and television and China Mobile would also build and share.
Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, responded to this at the 2019 annual report teleconference: "we are indeed communicating with China Radio and television to discuss the possibility of 5g co construction, sharing and win-win cooperation." It can be predicted that if the two sides jointly build 5g network, huge capital expenditure will be saved.
In addition, the epidemic at the beginning of this year also added new variables to the rhythm of 5g construction of operators. With the outbreak of the demand for online office and online education, the Ministry of industry and information technology proposed to speed up the construction of 5g network, and the state also proposed the concept of new infrastructure, one of which is 5g. In March this year, China Mobile launched the centralized procurement of 5g phase II wireless network main equipment in 2020, with a total demand of more than 230000 stations.
Jian Qin, deputy general manager of China Mobile, revealed at the China Mobile 5g ecological Partner Conference held on May 17 that up to now, China Mobile has built 124000 5g base stations covering 56 cities. He also said that China Mobile will accelerate the 5g layout, strive to achieve the goal of 300000 5g base stations in 2020 ahead of schedule, and realize 5g commercial services in urban areas above the national prefecture level.
The target of 5g package users is raised to 100 million, which needs to balance ARPU growth
In judging the 5g construction progress of operators, in addition to the number of 5g base stations, another indicator is the number of 5g package users.
At the end of October 2019, China Mobile launched five personal 5g packages, which were 128 yuan / 198 yuan / 298 yuan / 398 yuan / 598 yuan respectively. The price of 5g package from 128 yuan has aroused the evaluation that most netizens are too expensive.
China Mobile is also trying to attract users to switch to 5g packages. For example, in the 5g package reservation stage, preferential policies for old users are launched. Users with a network age of 5 years and above can enjoy a 70% discount, and users with a network age of less than 5 years can enjoy a 20% discount. This will undoubtedly attract 4G old users of China Mobile to 5g packages in terms of price.
In addition, China Mobile has also launched the strategy of ordering 5g traffic packages separately. When users use 5g mobile phones, they can enjoy 5g network without changing the basic package as long as they order 5g traffic package. Sina Technology saw in China Mobile mall that the 5g traffic package can pack 20GB 5g traffic for a minimum of 49 yuan during the promotion period, which also reduces the threshold for users to switch to 5g package.
Under various measures, China Mobile's 5g package users have achieved rapid growth.
In February this year, China Mobile announced the scale of 5g users in its monthly operation data for the first time. According to the data, by the end of January 2020, the number of 5g package users of China Mobile was 6.736 million; By the first quarter of this year, the number of 5g package customers of China Mobile had increased to 31.72 million; Jian Qin, deputy general manager of China Mobile, revealed at the 5g ecological Partner Conference that as of May 17, the number had reached 50.998 million.
China Mobile has also greatly increased the target of 5g package users in 2020. For 2020, China Mobile previously set a goal of a net increase of 70 million 5g package customers; Jian Qin, deputy general manager of China Mobile, proposed at the 5g ecological Partner Conference that in 2020, it plans to cooperate with industrial chain partners to develop more than 100 million 5g package users.
However, the number of 5g package users of operators has also triggered some disputes.
The biggest focus is the statistical caliber of 5g users. According to the data of ICT Institute, the domestic 5g mobile phone shipments in 2019 totaled 13.769 million, compared with 30.441 million from January to April this year. This means that the number of 5g package customers of China Mobile alone is equivalent to the cumulative 5g mobile phone shipments in China. Then, among the 5g package customers counted by the three operators, a large number of users do not use 5g mobile phones.
Earlier, there were media reports that China mobile users' feedback was that they were 'become 5g package users. Some users holding 4G mobile phones received a text message from China Mobile: '[effective reminder] Dear customers, in order to better enjoy 5g network services, China Mobile provides you with 5g preferential services for free, which will take effect next month.'
This is indeed a difficult problem for operators. According to the caliber of using 5g mobile phone + 5g package at the same time, the number of 5g users is far from the current number and development speed.
In addition to the dispute over the number of 5g users, for China Mobile, the user ARPU (average contribution revenue per user) needs to be balanced. In the 4G era, China Mobile's ARPU has been declining due to factors such as speed-up, fee reduction and price war; If this situation repeats in the 5g era due to package promotion and other factors, the revenue growth brought by 5g users will also be extremely limited, which is extremely unfavorable to China Mobile, which has to bear huge 5g capital expenditure.
Killer application and business model challenges to be solved
The perfection of 5g network coverage is the premise for users to use 5g, but the exploration of application scenarios is also very important.
For individual users, 5g network provides much more experience than 4G network in terms of download rate, and has advantages in online video viewing, content download and so on. However, some netizens questioned that the 4G network speed is enough, and 5g has not yet had a killer application scenario to attract users.
Operators have also made many explorations in 5g personal application scenarios. For example, China Mobile launched cloud games, 5g video RBT, etc. At present, the progress of cloud games seems unclear. Users need to pay separately for the traffic of cloud games, which increases a lot of additional costs; The progress of 5g video RBT is not bad. In March this year, China Mobile announced that the number of video RBT users officially exceeded 100 million.
Another highlight is the 5g news led by China Mobile and jointly launched by China Telecom and China Unicom. 5g message upgrades the traditional short message service, enriching the user experience. At the same time, you can quickly enjoy enterprise related services on 5g message, such as ordering train tickets, sending e-mail, etc. LV Tingjie, a professor at Beijing University of Posts and telecommunications, told Sina technology that he was very optimistic about the prospect of 5g news in the enterprise market.
However, the commercial use of 5g news is still facing the problem of the unification of Android and apple terminals. It is reported that 5g news Android phones are natively supported without downloading apps. But whether Apple's mobile phone can support natively depends on Apple's policy. According to relevant sources of China Mobile, in the past few years, the communication and discussion between operators and apple has been ongoing. At present, the practice of installing app experience can help apple and apple mobile phone users experience and use 5g messages, but it undoubtedly requires additional human and financial investment.
In addition to individual user application scenarios, industry applications are also the focus of operators. However, the business model applied in the industry is a headache for operators.
Taking the application of 5g in the field of travel networking as an example, to realize the networking of vehicles, it is necessary to install a separate module, but who will bear the cost of the module has become a key issue. Operators themselves have to bear the huge investment in 5g network construction. It is obviously unrealistic for them to pay for it.
In an interview with Sina Technology, LV Tingjie suggested that the development of 5g should not rely solely on operators, but should straighten out the mechanism of 5g construction and business model from the policy level, encourage socialized investment, and let the whole society and industry participate in 5g construction, application exploration and business model construction.