China Mobile chairman Shang Bing says the world’s largest telecom network operator is getting ready to shift to 5G from 4G.
China Mobile started talking about 5G mobile technology at a time when American telecom network operators Verizon Wireless and AT&T are in the process of testing 5G equipments and looking for an early 5G deployment as compared with commercial launch of 5G in 2020 in the case of several other telecoms.
China Mobile aims to reach 1.40 million TD-LTE base stations in 2016 from 1.10 million TD-LTE base stations in 2015.
The technology company targets to sell 330 million 4G devices in 2016 against 300 million TD-LTE devices in 2015. China Mobile sold more than 400 TD-LTE users every minute.
China Mobile plans to expand the 4G subscriber base to over 500 million in 2016 as compared with 340 million in 2015. China Mobile’s 4G subscriber base now accounts for about 30 percent of global number.
China Mobile has achieved 4G roaming with 114 countries and regions.
Moreover, China Mobile has completed the deployment of carrier aggregation (CA) in over 300 cities and has commercialized VoLTE services in 100 cities.
China Mobile, participating at the World Mobile Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, said it will speed up the 4G deployment by increasing the number of TD-LTE base stations to 1.40 million and deploy CA technologies in central and hot-spot areas of all cities by the end of 2016.
It will commercialize VoLTE services in over 260 cities in the first half of 2016.
China Mobile will commercialize the Rich Communication Service (RCS) in the second half of the year.
China Mobile will develop dedicated networks for the Internet of Things (IoT) and aims to develop 100 million IoT connections in 2016. Shang Bing pointed out that the company expects to increase the maturity of narrow-band IoT (NB-IOT) and strives to commercialize it in 2017.
Li Zhengmao, vice president of China Mobile, together with 11 partners, jointly launched the China Mobile 5G Joint Innovation Center. Partners include Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, Datang, Intel, Keysight, among others.
China Mobile introduced VoLTE/CA devices and chip solutions, including its self-branded VoLTE/CA devices such as A1s, A2 and N2. China Mobile in association with Samsung unveiled 5 new VoLTE devices.
China Mobile, in partnership with Qualcomm and MTK, launched VoLTE+ down-link and up-link CA chip solutions for $100. China Mobile, jointly with Spreadtrum and Leadcore, released VoLTE chip solutions for $50.
China Mobile did not share details on its 5G targets and strategies.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
