(Ji Yuqing/Text) lifelike naked-eye 3D, like an unmanned driving that reproduces the scene of a science fiction movie, a generative artificial intelligence application full of whimsy...... Behind these products and technologies, network infrastructure support with higher bandwidth, lower latency, and higher security is required, and 5G-A is becoming the next outlet for the information and communication industry.
From the intensive release of products and cooperative R&D results at the MWC2024 conference at the beginning of the year, to the world's first commercial deployment of 5G-A by China Mobile in March, to the 5th anniversary of 5G licensing on June 6, many places have joined hands to open a new era of 5G-A, everything shows that 5G-A has become a new focus for all parties in the industrial chain, and 2024 will also become a year of great color in the information and communication industry.
5G is in the ascendant, why 5G-A?
There has been a lot of discussion about 5G-A in the industry. For example, is 5G-A needed at this stage? Today, the industry has reached a consensus on this issue: both the consumer and industrial fields have put forward higher requirements for technical indicators such as large bandwidth, low latency, and high reliability, so it is time to develop 5G-A.
Since 5G was put into commercial use in China in 2019, technologies such as ultra-high-definition video, cloud computing, Internet of Things, AR/VR, and artificial intelligence have been deeply integrated with 5G, giving rise to a large number of innovative service applications. However, 5G can support many applications well, but it is not strong enough in some applications. For example, high-definition live broadcast, industrial video surveillance and other fields need to upload massive data at any time, industrial automation, unmanned vehicles and ships, drones and other fields need deterministic low latency, high reliability, high-precision positioning, early 5G systems can not provide satisfactory support, which is also the fundamental driving force for the development of 5G-A.
In order to meet the new needs of individual and industrial customers, 5G-A has been greatly improved in terms of high bandwidth, low latency, and high reliability. According to the frozen 5G-A international standard, the uplink and downlink bandwidth of the 5G-A network will be increased by 10 times, effectively supporting real-time 3D rendering, interactive games, and device-cloud collaboration, and greatly improving the user experience of 5G new calls, cloud phones, cloud computers and other products. The reliability of 5G-A will also increase to 99.999%-99.9999%, and with the help of new passive IoT technology, ultra-large distance and ultra-large-scale passive IoT technology, so that applications such as Internet of Vehicles and industrial Internet can be truly promoted. In addition, 5G-A will also integrate capabilities such as integrated synaesthesia, integrated space and earth, and integrated computing and intelligence, providing strong support for the digital and intelligent upgrading of all walks of life.
More importantly, the development of 5G-A can lay the foundation for 6G to cultivate industrial elements in advance, and also lay a solid technical foundation for the future intelligent era. Generative AI is causing a global data explosion, calling for more powerful 5G-A networks, and the adoption of 5G and AI technologies has even become a new indicator of ICT companies' innovation capabilities.
2024 will be the first year of commercial use of 5G-A, which will give telecom operators huge business growth potential, and 5G-A is expected to contribute more than 30% to the growth of the digital intelligence economy in the next five years.
5G-A accelerates "go-live"
Recently, when entering Beijing's Financial Street, Chang'an Avenue, around the West Third Ring Road CCTV Tower, Capital Airport, Olympic Park and other areas, many people were surprised to find that the icon of their mobile phone signal had a small "A", and the network was automatically upgraded from "5G" to "5G-A", and the download speed was increased by more than 5 times - this is because these areas have opened 5G-A networks, and playing games and shooting live broadcasts are exceptionally smooth. In this way, there will be more and more regions in Beijing, and more and more cities across the country will be able to experience 5G-A services.
In fact, as early as the MWC2024 conference held in February this year, the commercial plan of 5G-A has caused a sensation, China Mobile, China Unicom, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Xiaomi and other companies have ambitiously announced the latest progress or plans of 5G-A. Subsequently, the 5G-A industry chain took rapid action: on March 28, China Mobile launched the world's first 5G-A commercial deployment; In April, China Mobile announced that it had completed the country's first offshore 5G-A trial commercial verification, China Unicom completed the large-scale deployment of 5G-A in the high-speed rail scenario, and China Telecom built the country's first 5G-A general computing convergence base station continuous commercial demonstration area. At the end of April, China Mobile announced the opening of the first 5G-A base station on Mount Everest, and completed the world's first 100-kilometer-level 5G-A integrated cross-sea route low-altitude network coverage in May. On June 6, multiple cities joined hands to usher in a new era of 5G-A. It can be said that the construction and application exploration of 5G-A have formed a new trend across the country.
Looking at the world, 5G-A is also popular. France's Orange is exploring 5G-A to support live video broadcasting, logistics and other industry applications, a number of operators in the United States are actively promoting 5G-A trials and construction, and the United Arab Emirates has announced that it will launch 5G-A network deployment nationwide. Obviously, the maturity and commercial potential of 5G-A has become the consensus of the telecom industry at home and abroad, and the world's leading operators are actively promoting the application of 5G-A in multiple scenarios such as smart people, home connection, car connection, and venues.
Industrial reshaping
China has been using 5G commercially for five years, and the next five years will be five years for 5G to accelerate the deep integration of 5G with various economic and social fields, and it will also be a key five years for 5G to evolve to 5G-A and 6G. As 5G-A technology and equipment mature, the 5G-A industry chain will be rapidly improved, and 5G-A networks will also emerge on the B-end and C-end.
In terms of technology and equipment, ZTE, Huawei and other manufacturers have the ability to supply commercial 5G-A base station systems on a large scale. In the personal consumer market, 5G-A is about to become the "new standard" of smart terminals, Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, Vivo and other mobile phone manufacturers have products that support 5G-A, and operators such as China Mobile are also actively guiding the industry chain to launch 5G-A terminals such as mobile phones, CPE, XR, and glasses-free 3D devices. In the industrial application market, 5G-A is becoming a must for the industrial Internet, and a wealth of 5G-A solutions have been put into practice in key domestic industries.
In Fujian, Zhejiang, Shandong, Tianjin, Yunnan, Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing and other places, the deployment and construction of 5G-A integrated base stations are being promoted to monitor the operation status and trajectory of aerial vehicles, ground vehicles, and water vessels, and take timely control measures. In Jiangsu, Sinopec Geophysical Exploration Institute is using 5G-A passive Internet of Things technology to realize the visualization and automatic management of all production factors and processes; In Beijing, 5G-A-based autonomous driving systems are being tested to train AI analysis and processing models based on sensor data from unmanned vehicles. In Chongqing, Changan Automobile's digital intelligence factory continues to carry out fully automated production with the support of 5G and 5G-A technologies. In Hebei, the 5G-A private network covers the Great Wall Seiko Automation Factory, which has the country's first 5G-A automotive flexible production line. There is no doubt that China's communications industry is ready for the arrival of the 5G-A era.
Higher network quality, more dimensions of expansion, and the full integration of AI enable 5G-A to change the environment and behavior patterns from individuals to families, and from enterprises to society. The digital economic revolution triggered by 5G will inevitably explode due to 5G-A, and people's ideas for 5G will also become a reality one by one in the 5G-A era.
2024, beyond 5G!