It is becoming the first year of 5G in 2018. Although 3GP will not complete the independent networking version 5G standard by June 2018, the U.S. operator AT & T announced in January 2018 that it would "snatch away ', The first batch will be in Atlanta, Dallas, Waco three cities by the end of the year in 12 cities launch 5G network services.
In this context, the world's leading telecom operators have announced their own 5G advancement schedule at 2018 Mobile World Congress (MWC 2018) from February 26 to March 1, 2018. Overall, the United States is the most Radical, behind AT & T, T-Mobile and Verizon each announced the deployment of 5G networks in 30 cities and 3-5 cities by 2018. Operators in China, Japan, Korea, Australia, Finland and other countries announced at MWC 2018 will increase the intensity of testing 5G services, the fastest launch of 5G services in 2019.
Shang Bing, president of China Mobile, announced at MWC that China Mobile will build the world's largest 5G experimental network in 2018. China Mobile's chief scientist Yi Zhiling revealed in an interview with China Business Daily that the company originally planned for 2018 The 5G experimental network was set up in 5 cities, and the NDRC issued a "Circular on Organizing the Implementation of a New Generation Information Infrastructure Project in 2018." The company expanded the number of cities testing 5G services to 12. China Unicom (6.440, 0.04 , 0.63%), China Telecom in 2018 5G experimental network deployment of cities were 7 and 6.
Chip areas: Players increased but Qualcomm still has advantages
Telecom operators to build 5G experimental network to promote the commercial 5G network, the 5G industry chain needs to be prepared in all aspects.From all parties on the MWC 2018 'show muscle' point of view, 5G industry chain seems to be ready for all aspects.
In the field of wireless chip, the most upstream of 5G industry chain, the market structure of Qualcomm as a leader, MediaTek and Spreadtrum as followers has been formed in the world since 3G, but for now, the 5G chip market will add more ' Players'.
In October 2016, Qualcomm released the world's first 5G modem, the Snapdragon X50 modem, and expanded its Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem family in February 2017 to support the new 5G air interface multimode 3GPP compliant with the 3GPP 5G new air interface global system Chipset solutions that support spectrum operation below 6 GHz and multi-band millimeter-wave spectrum to address a wide range of usage scenarios and deployment scenarios Modems are an integral part of the 5G baseband chip Qualcomm president Christiano Armon on the MWC 2018 Announced the release of a 5G module solution that includes key components such as application processors, baseband modems, memory, power management units (PMICs), radio frequency front end (RFFE), antennas and more.
Christianiano Amon told reporters that Qualcomm 's new 5G module solution integrates more than a thousand components in several products, reducing the threshold to promote large - scale commercial 5G These 5G module solutions will support OEM manufacturers Get started quickly and get to market with lower costs and less time.
Intel also announced its XMM8060 family of 5G modems next to Qualcomm in November 2017 and on the eve of MWC 2018 a strategic partnership with Ziguang Zharui (formerly China Spreadtrum), a chip design company of Ziguang Group, Both parties will develop a new 5G smart phone chipset equipped with the Intel 5G modem XMM8060 for the Chinese market.
Huawei announced the launch of its first 5G chip, Baron 5G01, on the eve of MWC 2018 on the 25th of December in Barcelona, and launched the 5G Terminal CPE (Consumer Premise Equipment, commonly known as Baron 5G01) Directly into the WiFi signal.) Reporter on February 25 conference site saw Huawei Consumer Business BG CEO Yu Chengdong Matebook X Pro is released after the announcement that Huawei will bring 'One More Thing' for the industry - 5G Commercial chip Baron 5G01 and 5G CPE.
However, the release of Baron 5G01 Huawei about the 'world's first' rhetoric triggered Qualcomm's' Tucao 'Qualcomm Marketing Senior Director Peter Carson told reporters that' Qualcomm released at MWC 2017 the world's first 5G modem - The Snapdragon X50 5G Modem, announced in Hong Kong in October 2017 that it is the world's first 5G data connection based on the Snapdragon X50 5G modem chipset. Some vendors will say they have made a lot of industry first or first, believe When we heard the time when I resumed sharing, it became clear that Qualcomm had made very solid progress in 5G.
An industry source MWC 2018 during this reporter interviewed said that no matter from the launch of the time, or from the performance, Qualcomm is still technologically leading Xiaolong X50 5G modem chipset theoretical peak speed of 5Gbps, the actual measured The speed has reached 4.51Gbps, the theoretical peak speeds of Huawei Baron 5G01 and Intel XMM8060 are 2.3Gbps and 1.6Gbps, respectively, and the rate is basically only close to the latest generation of Gigabit LTE modems Xiaolong X24.
Equipment areas: the four major manufacturers make concerted efforts
In the field of 5G communications equipment directly required by telecom operators' infrastructure construction, Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia and ZTE (four largest telecom equipment manufacturers in the world) also made preparations in MWC 2018 Great posture.
Relevant domestic media reports show that on February 26, Yang Chaobin, president of Huawei 5G product line, released a full range of end-to-end 5G product solutions based on the 3GPP standard on the MWC 2018, covering the core network, transmission, sites and terminals. , Full scene, all cloud 'ability.
Bao Yikang, Ericsson's president and chief executive officer, said Ericsson will contribute to the 5G business success by bringing together key business drivers such as 5G commercial power and wireless access, network slicing, and machine intelligence, and '5G platforms have now been set up by Ericsson, including the core Network, wireless network and transport network products, as well as OSS, BSS, network services and security products.
ZTE also announced the launch of a series of 5G commercial products at MWC 2018, including 5G serialized access devices covering high and low frequency bands, a diversified 5G bearer solution and a flexible and efficient 5G core network, etc. According to ZTE stakeholders The company is well-prepared for telecom operators that are interested in deploying 5G networks on a commercial scale in 2019.
Reporter noted that the four major communications equipment manufacturers - Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE announced that they have signed with the telecom operators around the world 25, 38, 31, more than 20 memorandums of understanding, 'playing ring' Posture has been put up.
However, the aforementioned interviewees in the industry believe that the number of MOUs can only be used as a reference. Telecom operators generally adopt equipment from multiple vendors, but their share is different. Huawei has taken up the advantage of being difficult to challenge in the field of communications equipment. Providing equipment to more than 50% of 4G networks and over 60% of 4G LTE networks in the world, Huawei is in the starting position even in terms of preserving old network equipment and maximizing the return on investment.
The same person also believes that due to Huawei's lead in the field of communications equipment, Ericsson, Nokia and ZTE market pressures are relatively large, they generally hope that the 5G building as soon as possible, "gate opening" to reduce operating pressures and boost their performance.
Terminal areas: different strategies, different opportunities
Most concerned about the market or 5G terminal area, but for now, the future 5G terminal market is likely to show another pattern of competition.
According to IDC statistics, in the fourth quarter of 2017, the top five vendors in the global smartphone market are Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and OPPO in turn, 6 to 10 including vivo, Lenovo and ZTE.
In addition to Apple, Samsung, Huawei and other handset manufacturers, such as OPPO, vivo, millet and other Chinese manufacturers, are going all out for the first launch of 5G smartphones in 2019, and strive to seize the 5G era of new opportunities to achieve 'The world's top three' catch-up in the process, Qualcomm for these manufacturers to provide technical support will be an important boost.
The reporter learned that Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem chipset has made good progress in the entire 5G ecosystem.At present, it was included AT & T, British Telecom, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KDDI, Korea Telecom, LG Uplus, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, Telstra, TIM, Verizon, Vodafone and other global telecom operators for 5G new air interface (NR) mobile test, the same time, Qualcomm Xiaolong X50 5G modem series 20 OEMs including ASUS, Fujitsu, HMD Global, HTC, LG, NET, Sharp, Sony, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, ZTE, Manufacturers used to support the 2019 listed 5G mobile terminal.
The industry insiders believe that the different strategies of the terminal manufacturers on the chip are likely to bring new changes to the 5G mobile terminal market structure. Although the chip manufacturers have certainly got the convenience of vertical integration, in the 5G terminal market On the other hand, OEMs represented by Chinese manufacturers benefited from in-depth cooperation with Qualcomm to achieve first-mover advantage in the field of wireless chips, In order to seize the new opportunities brought by 5G and new markets, to achieve 'cornering overtaking'.