VALENCIA- Chinese vendor ZTE has already deployed tens of thousands of 5G base stations for Chinese carriers China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, Wang Jiayi, director of 5G RAN Solutions at ZTE, told RCR Wireless News.
“With China Mobile, we are deploying 5G infrastructure in 12 cities including Beijing. With China Telecom, we are starting with five cities. We are deploying 5G in Xiong’an, a 5G standalone network for China Telecom, and we expect these initial five cities would expand in the future,” the executive said on the sidelines of the Global 5G Event which took place this week in Valencia, Spain.
He also said that deployments for China Unicom are currently taking place in six cities, including Shenzhen.
The executive said that some Chinese carriers are already offering pre-commercial 5G services to a group of friendly users.
He also highlighted that ZTE is fully prepared for the commercialization in wireless, core network, transport, chipsets, mobile devices and industry applications.
In January 2019, ZTE completed the third phase of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s IMT-2020 5G core network tests.
The third-phase testing involved evaluations of the performance of the network function virtualization infrastructure platform, the service performance of the 5G core network element, as well as system capacity and stability.
The vendor said it passed all test cases and met the requirements for service model and specification indicators with its test results, verifying the maturity of its 5G core network solution. The security function test focused on the device identity management and registration, as well as the security service procedure in mobility. ZTE said its system successfully passed all the mandatory test cases.
Earlier this month, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) officially issued licenses for the launch of commercial 5G networks in the country.
The 5G permits were granted to state-run carriers China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and state-owned broadcaster China Broadcasting Network.
At the end of last year, the MIIT previously issued licenses for 5G trials in a number of cities across China. Commercial rollout of 5G in China was initially expected to occur during 2020. However, the decision by the government to accelerate 5G deployment will trigger investment in the Chinese market.
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, said it planned to offer 5G services in more than 40 Chinese cities before the end of September.
In a statement, the MIIT also said that foreign vendors were also welcome to participate in the rollout of 5G technology in China. Nordic vendors Ericsson and Nokia had previously said that they had interest in securing contracts in the Chinese market for the deployment of 5G.
According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the country will invest between $134 billion and $223 billion in 5G between 2020 and 2025, generating an economic value as high as $3.7 trillion, with operators realizing some $283 billion in attendant revenue.
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