Chinese telecom service provider launches its 5G plan in Beijing

Chinese telecom service provider, China Unicom today launched a "5G NEXT" plan as part of its effort to set up a faster wireless 5G networks in the Chinese capital in the near future.

China Unicom's Beijing subsidiary will pilot the commercialisation of 5G technology and test the 5G networks in the capital in 2018, according to China Unicom's vice general manager Wang Chuanbao.

With an aim to build an "open, sharing, prosperous, and win-win" 5G ecological system, the subsidiary will build 300 5G base stations this year in Beijing, one of the 16 pilot cities previously announced, he was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Other cities to pilot 5G technology include Tianjin, Qingdao, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guiyang, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Fuzhou, Zhengzhou, and Shenyang.

Beijing will apply the 5G technology in major projects and events in the next five years, such as those in Tongzhou District, Beijing's subsidiary administrative centre, the capital's new international airport, the International Horticultural Exhibition 2019, and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Jiang Guangzhi, an inspector from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology was quoted as saying in the report.

The Beijing branch also said that they will work with companies to deploy 5G technology in the fields of self-driving, logistics, and unmanned aerial vehicles, it said.