By Juan Pedro Tomás
Chinese operators have deployed a total of 961,000 5G base stations as of the end of July, according to a report from Chinese news outlet Sina Finance.
The report stated that the number of base stations in China currently represents approximately 80 per cent of the total number of 5G sites deployed globally.
Also, local telcos China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom said they had deployed more than 700,000 NB-IoT base stations nationwide, with the number of mobile IoT connections reaching 1.3 billion, according to Sina Finance.
According to data provided by the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the number of 5G-connected devices in China has exceeded 365 million now, making up 80 per cent of the world’s total.
In July, Chinese government agencies jointly issued a three-year 5G action plan aiming to significantly improve 5G development in the country.
Ten departments including the MIIT, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) jointly issued a 5G action plan with the goal of advancing the adoption of 5G technology in China.
The three-year action plan sets the goal to reach over 560 million 5G users by 2023, with the penetration rate of 5G technology exceeding 40 per cent among Chinese users.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, added a total of 28.7 million 5G subscribers in June, according to the carrier’s latest available figures.
The operator said it ended last month with 250.69 million 5G subscribers, compared to 70.2 million 5G customers in June 2020.
Rival operator China Unicom said it added a total of 7.23 million 5G subscribers during June. The telco ended June with 113.33 million 5G subscribers, up from 106.1 million the previous month. China Unicom started to provide 5G statistics earlier this year.
Meanwhile, China Telecom added 6.66 million 5G subscribers in June to take its total 5G subscribers base to 131.5 million
According to recent press reports, China Broadcast Network and China Mobile have recently completed a tender to deploy over 400,000 5G base stations this year, as part of the companies’ efforts to launch a shared 5G network. The contracts had been won by Huawei, ZTE, Datang, Nokia and Ericsson.
The two companies expect this shared network to reach nationwide coverage within the next two years.
China Broadcasting Network was established in October 2020 in Beijing, becoming the country’s fourth mobile operator.
