Looking back at MWC2022: Exploring new paths for industry growth in the "post-Shannon era"

"The global digital economy is developing rapidly, and it is predicted that the digital economy will account for more than 50% of GDP this year, and the demand for digitalization will exceed expectations. On the supply side, Shannon's theorem and von Neumann's architecture have encountered major bottlenecks. At the recent mobile world congress 2022 (hereinafter referred to as MWC2022), Guo Ping, huawei's rotating chairman, said.

From the failure of Moore's Law to the approaching bottleneck of Shannon's theorem and von Neumann's architecture, where will the future be when the theoretical foundations of industry development are no longer solid? It is undeniable that establishing a new basic theory is not an easy task, and it is feasible to avoid adverse effects through new paradigms and new models and find new paths.

At the Mobile World Congress, known as the "wind vane" of industry development, industry experts resonated with the same frequency and exchanged ideas around the new path of industry growth in the era of vigorous development of the digital economy, and low carbon, spectrum and computing power became hot topics.

Path 1

Practice green and low carbon

While asking questions, Huawei is also looking for solutions to them. Ding Yun, managing director of Huawei and president of operator BG, said that the vitality of the digital economy can be assessed by three dimensions, namely, the density of connections, the diversity of computation, and the intensity of carbon emission reduction, from which operators can find new opportunities for the future development of the digital economy. This coincides with the hot topics of low carbon, spectrum and computing power on MWC2022. At present, lower carbon emissions, more efficient spectrum allocation, and more powerful computing power networks are jointly guiding the development path of the communications industry to avoid bottlenecks.

The industry generally believes that climate change will pose a threat to human survival, and the decarbonization of all economies is imminent, and more than 120 countries and regions have proposed carbon neutrality goals. Green ICTs are significant and indispensable to achieving carbon neutrality. According to a report by the Global Initiative for Electronic Sustainability (GeSI), the ICT industry will account for only 1.97% of global carbon emissions by 2030, and the application of ICT technology can reduce carbon emissions by 20% in thousands of industries, 10 times the CARBON emissions of the ICT industry itself. When combined with the goal of all humanity, the ICT industry will be able to benefit all mankind while developing itself, thus achieving its own long-term sustainable development.

Because green and low carbon are so important, the GTI International Industry Summit held during MWC2022 set the theme as "5G Innovation Helps Green and Low Carbon Development". At the summit, Anita D hler, CEO of the Next Generation Mobile Network Alliance (NGMN), stressed the need to use the advantages of 5G, energy-saving solutions based on artificial intelligence and renewable energy to solve the problem of network energy efficiency.

The telecommunications industry has stepped up to help other industries save energy and reduce emissions, and jointly achieve green development. Gao Tongqing, deputy general manager of China Mobile, said that China Mobile has always practiced green and low-carbon development, carried out the "Green Action Plan" for 14 consecutive years and achieved remarkable results, and in the future, China Mobile will practice the "C Three Energy - China Mobile Carbon Peak Carbon Neutrality Action Plan", focusing on the three main lines of action of "energy saving, clean energy and empowerment", and further promoting the energy conservation and carbon reduction of new information infrastructure. China Telecom and China Unicom are promoting 5G sharing, and by the end of 2021, the two sides will save more than 10 billion kWh of electricity and reduce carbon emissions by more than 6 million tons. Takatoshi Okagawa, R&D Strategy Department of NTT docomo, said the company will achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 by taking drastic power saving actions, using renewable energy, adopting IOWN (Innovative Optical and Wireless Network) technology, and innovating in EMS (Energy Management System) research and development.

Huawei shared the green strategy of "more bits, fewer watts" and released two scenario-based solutions for full-stack data centers and next-generation smart campuses, accelerating the process of digitalization and green transformation.

Path 2

Rational and efficient use of spectrum resources

5G development, spectrum first. As the core strategic resource of mobile communications, spectrum is the starting point of industrial development, and spectrum planning will determine the follow-up direction and pattern of the industry to a large extent. Cheng Jianjun, director of the National Radio Monitoring Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that spectrum is a key factor in the development of mobile communications and will have a profound impact on the development of the industry in the future.

As 5G continues to deepen, governments and industry have begun to explore how to innovate the use of spectrum resources in the future to improve the affordability and quality of connectivity and support the digital transformation of industries such as manufacturing, the Internet of Things, and healthcare.

The GSMA predicts that 5G will bring more than $961 billion in economic value to the world by 2030. So, how can spectrum resources be used more efficiently to achieve inclusive and equal connectivity? Luciana Camargos, GSMA's Acting Spectrum Director and Senior Director of Future Spectrum, believes that high-frequency, medium-frequency and low-frequency resources are all very important for the development of 5G networks. The low frequency band can achieve network coverage in remote areas, realize the inclusiveness and inclusiveness of the network, and bring help to communications, transportation, and agriculture; the medium frequency band is relatively mature, which is very critical for the future economic growth of highly industrialized countries and developing countries; the high frequency band is rich in resources, the spectrum distribution is relatively complete, and the advantages are obvious. Mario Maniewicz, Director of the ItU Radiocommunication Bureau, suggested: "We need to establish an international standard system framework for the rational, efficient and equitable use of spectrum and improve spectral efficiency." ”

Although high frequency, intermediate frequency and low frequency are equally important, nearly 80% of the more than 180 5G commercial networks that have been launched in the world are in the intermediate frequency band, for which GSMA President Greid said: I hope that governments around the world will allocate 5G spectrum at reasonable prices as soon as possible, and hope that industry customers will pay attention to the important value of millimeter wave in sports venues, campuses, industrial parks and other scenarios.

During MWC2022, six Major European operators, including Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom, Telefónica, France Telecom, and Swedish operator Telia, together with Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, etc., issued a common appeal: As the time of WRC-23 approaches, the industry should fully recognize the importance of 6GHz to the mobile industry, jointly promote the use of 6GHz as IMT spectrum, expand the 5G and mobile industry space, and promote the global digitalization process.

While striving for more spectrum resources, we must also objectively realize that spectrum resources are not inexhaustible, and it will become more and more difficult to obtain new frequency bands. FCC Chair Jessica suggested that new technologies could be adopted to promote the efficient use of existing spectrum resources, such as co-construction and sharing, lightweighting, and the application of new models in leasing, as well as the application of database resources.

In this regard, China Telecom and ZTE jointly innovated and launched Cluster DSS (Dynamic Resource Sharing at the Base Station Cluster Level), which realizes the unified allocation of resources in the base station cluster and significantly improves the resource utilization rate of the base station cluster. Recent field tests have shown that Cluster DSS has increased the downlink rate of 5G users on 2.1GHz networks by 70%, while the performance of 4G user networks has also remained stable.

Path 3

The computing power is driven by the fusion of the connection force

The concept of computing power, which has been heating up recently, has become a hot topic on MWC2022 without suspense.

Computing power is the ability to process data, if the communication industry in the past many years mainly through the deployment of networks to establish connectivity, then with the integration of IT and CT, the computing power from the IT field into the communication industry vision, connection and computing power integration and development, to achieve two-wheel drive, has become the common choice of the three major operators.

Ke Ruiwen, chairman of China Telecom, said that China Telecom has put forward the goal of building a technology-based enterprise in 2020 and is committed to upgrading from a traditional telecom operator to a technology-based enterprise. China Telecom took the lead in the industry to put forward the concept of computing power network and ITU took the lead in formulating the standard framework of computing power network, with the full launch of the "East Number West Computing" project, China Telecom will give full play to the advantages of cloud network integration and further optimize the layout of computing power resources.

Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, introduced that China Mobile proposed the new positioning of "creating a world-class information service technology innovation company", and made every effort to build a new information service system based on 5G + computing power network + smart middle office, "connection + computing power + capacity", and create a new model of value growth.

Liu Liehong, chairman of China Unicom, said that China Unicom conforms to the changes of the times and makes every effort to promote the development of a new generation of mobile communication technology and industry to empower the digital economy. Not long ago, China Unicom carried out a strategic upgrade, focusing on the five main businesses of "big connection, big computing, big data, big application and big security", and is committed to contributing to the development of China's and global digital economy.

Over the past two years, 5G commercialization has developed rapidly in terms of network coverage, terminals, and user scale. By the end of 2021, more than 200 operators around the world have deployed 5G commercial networks, with more than 700 million 5G users and more than 1,200 commercial terminals. In 2021, 5G will be commercially available in Latin America and sub-Saharan countries and regions, which means that 5G has achieved a wider range of promotion.

Digital technologies represented by 5G are booming day by day, constantly breaking through boundaries and injecting new momentum into the global economy. Looking forward to the future, with the opening of new paths, the digital economy represented by 5G will also show great development potential and space.

End

Author: Shu Wenqiong

Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Fan Fan

Review: Shen Qing

Producer: Liu Qicheng

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