China's path to 5G: What is the way forward?

China Mobile is aiming to commercialise services in select areas in 2018

China’s path to 5G: What is the way forward
Luca Simonelli | Tech in Asia
Last Updated : Mar 17 2017 | 2:08 PM IST
The number of Chinese netizens accessing the internet with mobile phones has increased significantly. In 2016, 92.5 per cent accessed the internet on their mobile phones. 
 
According to the latest count by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the country has more than 1.3 billion mobile phone users in 2016. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the number of mobile users who are using 4G technology doubled from 2015, with 770 million people using the said technology last year.
 
In the 13th Five-Year Plan, it is proposed that China should actively promote 5G development and launch it by 2020. China has built cooperation mechanisms with the EU, US, Japan, and Korea on levels of government and industrial associations. 
 
5G’s future minimum requirements
 
In February, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) released a draft where guidelines of 5G technology are specified. 
 
In 5G the peak data rate for a single mobile station will have to be, according to the requirements, 20 Gbit/s in download (2.5 gigabyte per second) and 10 Gbit/s in upload (1.5 gigabyte per second). 
 
5G trials in China
 
The Chinese government has scheduled phases for the trials:
 
Technology R&D from 2015 to 2018
 
 Product R&D from 2018 to 2020
 
Qualcomm, ZTE, and China Mobile have their plans on interoperability testing and outdoor trials for 5G radio specifications.
 
China Mobile is aiming to commercialise services in select areas in 2018 and start upgrading over 1 million 4G base stations to handle the new standard in the following year. 
 
Future applications of 5G technology (IoT)
 
Lower latency and higher bandwidth guaranteed by 5G will be key assets to develop virtual reality gaming platforms. Facebook has invested billions of dollars in virtual reality, buying Oculus Rift and providing Rift Palmer technological and financial support. 
This is an excerpt from the article published on Tech In Asia. You can read the full article here.

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