5G will develop in parallel with 4G for a long time
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Wise Finance” (ID: onecaijing), author Zijiang. The original title “Let 5G fly for a while”
Speak:
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The number of 5G mobile phones purchased is small, mainly used for speculation.
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No speed reduction, or related to the NSA network and the division rate.
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The thousand yuan 4G mobile phone in the sinking market is still the main force.
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The average user does not have much awareness, and 5G is mainly used in service industries.
Five years after the 4G commercial, 5G officially arrived.
Compared with the fiery scene after the launch of 4G, the 5G desertion made people clearly feel the contrast. The fundamental reason is that 5G technology is more inclined to serve B or C.
It seems that the public’s expectations for 5G don’t seem as hot as they think, and in the new era of communication, people look at it more and more calmly.
A China Unicom insider responsible for business cooperation told Wise Finance that 4G will still be in parallel with 5G in the future, and the development of 5G will not mature until two years later, while for B-end Users, more technology is in the experimental stage and cannot be quickly commercialized.
“Like AI, driverless, these scenes are not commercially available in three or five years, it takes a long time to go, 5G is just to better serve these industries.” The person stressed that 5G For ordinary users, there is no big difference. The difference may be that the network speed is faster.
According to a telecom analyst who declined to be named, 5G is currently in its infancy, and many applications are still in a lab environment. In the short term, real business cannot be achieved. Ordinary users will be the most Experience the 5G technology.
Technology first applicationLater, each application communication network update iteration will produce such an application blank, but for some cumbersome B-side applications, they can not quickly meet consumer demand, and the current common consumer applications Only stay on top of the IOT device.
01 hype ahead
On August 16, Huawei’s 5G mobile phone was officially released, and 11 days ago, ZTE’s first mobile phone was also on sale. However, compared with ZTE’s no one cares, Huawei is particularly dazzling.
The 5G phone started its first journey. On the day of the release, “Wise Finance” went to Beijing Zhongguancun, Muxiyuan, Beijing major electrical appliance stores, and the three major operators’ business halls for investigation. The scene that thought that the fire broke out was extremely deserted.
In the Unicom business hall in Zhongguancun, there is a publicity display board for 5G mobile phones at the door. Most of the consumers who come to handle the business are handling packages or paying fees. Only three or four consumers ask if there is a 5G mobile phone. Sell, price and tariff.
“There are not many people to ask, but also buy, but most of them still hold a wait-and-see attitude.” A staff member in the office told Wise Finance. Similarly, in the Fangshan Palace business hall, the consumers who came to inquire were greater than the consumers who needed to buy.
“After the two days of the sale, there were a lot of people to buy, but I felt like a mobile phone wholesaler.” The staff of the office confided to Wise Finance, and two or three young people came to buy Huawei 5G mobile phones. However, the supply in the hall is limited, and only the Unicom Huasheng headquarters can be used to transfer goods. “These people say how much they want, and they have all the goods they come in.”
According to “Wise Finance”, the first batch of Huawei 5G mobile phones, due to limited production capacity, coupled with the increasing number of snap-ups, caused a shortage of supply and a shortage of supply.
On the Internet e-commerce companies such as Jingdong Mall, Suning Tesco, Gome, etc., Huawei 5G models are out of stock, and purchases need to be reserved. “Wise Finance” has also personally experienced the snap-up process, but the page status automatically shows no goods after the purchase time.
But the operator did not have such a panic buying scenario. The three major operators’ business halls said that the store is in stock and can be purchased at any time. However, from the real situation, China Unicom’s shipments are greater than the other two.
“Buy and sell again! Who is using 5G mobile phone now, so expensive.” At the Muxiyuan mobile phone store in Beijing, a shopkeeper took over the Huawei 5G mobile phone that the clerk had just bought from the business hall, and quickly checked it and handed it over to The clerk who handles the next process.
Because the operator has regulations, the mobile phones purchased at the same place need to be unpacked and the warranty of the insurance card will be torn off for archival purposes. “They all know us. We don’t need to activate the bag at boot. We all give it off when we take it down.” The clerk said to Wise Finance.
The activation collar that he mentioned isThrough the 5G promotion program launched on August 5th, each user who purchases 5G terminals can log in to Unicom APP to receive 100G 5G experience package before September 30th.
The unsuccessful Huawei 5G mobile phone was re-sold on the counter. “As long as the background of Huawei is not activated, it will not display the time. Just like the Apple mobile phone, there is no record.” The owner explained that the machine after the general seal will not have problems. “It’s just got back from the hall, can you have a problem?”
On the day of the launch of Huawei’s 5G mobile phone, the model once had a premium of more than 400 yuan, and the unactivated mobile phone can earn 100 yuan. Another counter owner told Wise Finance, “The people who buy it are not used by themselves. You see, I have a lot of machines that are labeled with Jingdong. They are sold directly after they have robbed. There are familiar users. Go straight to me.”
The same is a 5G mobile phone, and ZTE and Huawei are in stark contrast. On the one hand, ZTE’s mobile phones are constantly weakening, and on the other hand, more consumers are treated differently about dual-mode phones.
A Mr. Duan, who came to China Unicom to buy a 5G mobile phone, said that he had studied at home whether he bought a single model or a dual model. “Because Zhongxing is earlier than Huawei, I want to not buy ZTE to experience it.”
But in the end, Mr. Duan still waited for the release of Huawei 5G mobile phones. He told us two reasons. First, the thermal influence of Huawei brand is bigger than that of ZTE. Second, dual-mode mobile phones are better than single-mode mobile phones. “Who is such a expensive mobile phone?”
At present, Huawei 5G mobile phones support SA (independent networking) / NSA (non-independent networking) dual-mode, while other 5G mobile phones only support single-mode NSA, including OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Samsung. System.
The biggest difference between SA and NSA is the core network. The SA is an independent network completely separated from the anchor of the 4G on the base station side. The core network completely converts from the EPC (Evolved Packet Core) to the 5GC (5G Core, 5G core network).
The NSA non-independent networking is mainly supported by the 4G core network. It is generally considered that the core network is based on the 4GC EPC. Therefore, in a strict sense, the NSA networking should belong to the 4.9G network, while the SA is the 5G network.
At present, only Huawei’s Baron 5000 baseband chip can support two modes at the same time, while Qualcomm’s X50 5G baseband only supports NSA mode. That is to say, among the mobile phones sold in the market, only the Huawei Mate 20 X 5G version is dual-mode, and the 5Gs such as ZTE, Xiaomi, and OV all use the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, so the baseband only supports single mode.
So, this has led to some users choosing on the phone mode. Most consumers will not considerThe mobile phone itself supports which mode, but there are also consumers who still struggle between the two modes.
Wise Finance also got the two 5G mobile phones respectively, and received three operators 5G experience packages for testing. We selected four areas in Beijing for 5G network testing, namely Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Datang Telecom Research Institute, Zhongguancun, and Financial Street.
In these four regions, there are only three major operators’ 5G signals in the vicinity of Financial Street and Datang Telecom Research Institute. However, only Beijing Unicom’s 5G coverage is available in Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and there is no 5G signal coverage in Zhongguancun. And the measured maximum rate is 700Mbps, the average rate is about 300Mbps, and sometimes there is a rate of 10-30Mbps.
In this regard, independent telecom operator Fu Liang said that if the 5G rate is lower than 200Mbps, it means that there is still a problem in network optimization.
A person inside China Unicom told Wise Finance that the coverage of Unicom in the entire Beijing area is still dominated by the four rings, and only the coverage of hotspots will be continuous, while other areas will be point-based coverage, ie no Formed continuously. If the network edge or unoptimized area, the rate will be too low. “Now it’s still based on testing. After all, it’s not officially commercial.”
At present, the three major operators are advancing the deployment of 5G networks. However, due to the 5G millimeter wave characteristics and high frequency, the coverage requirements are extremely demanding, which requires operators to increase the number of base stations.
02 “No speed reduction, or related to unified value”
Operators are again under pressure. Recently, a chat screenshot was broadcasted on the Internet. The content of the chat was requested by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to give the 4G network a 5G speed reduction. In response to this news, the three major operators have rumored and responded that they have not received the relevant notice, and 4G will not slow down.
Evenly, the slowdown in 4G network has been in a state of fermentation, which has attracted more and more consumers’ attention. The decline in 4G network quality and experience has become a reality.
“Really, everything is stuck, and now the signal is getting worse.” A user spoke in a microblogging message from a carrier. Many users also said that they will really be speed limited.
According to the screenshot of the chat, the downlink rate of the 4G network will be reduced from 300Mbps to 100Mbps. However, whether it is 300 or 100 is only the theoretical download rate of the 4G network, and this speed change is not perceived in the actual use of the user.
A staff member engaged in network optimization of the operator told Wise Finance: “Our general speed measurement is at 10-20 Mbps, it will not be high, becauseThe base station load is different for each region, and the speed of people will naturally be slower. As in areas with few remote people, sometimes it can reach 80-90Mbps, which is not without it. “But it is not clear to the operator whether he is slowing down.
“It may be the reason why the 4G and 5G network speeds are unified.” Fu Liang said. He believes that under the circumstances of the country’s speed-up and fee reduction, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is unlikely to go against the trend. But he also did not deny the problem of 100Mbps speed limit.
According to the 5G free experience plan announced by the three major operators, users who hold 5G terminals before September 30 can receive 100G free experience traffic packets, while users who do not receive traffic packets take 100Mbps rate capping measures to avoid Generate high traffic.
“Identification of whether to hold a 5G mobile phone is also through the open mobile phone identification rights, the system is not so smart. The 5G network is indeed divided into two files, the traffic rate is 100Mbps downlink rate, and the leader is 1Gbps.” Insiders of China Unicom said to Wise Finance.
For the speed limit issue, he explained that this may be due to the rate limit caused by the network mode problem. “In order to build a network fast, most regional base stations use NSA networking, so this problem may occur.”
In the previous article, we mentioned that the NSA network mainly relies on the 4G core network for construction. Therefore, according to this person, in order to unify the threshold of not receiving the traffic packet, it can be uniformly divided into a 100Mbps speed limit. “General users are not aware of it, and operators generally do not do this unless it is a technical condition.”
In recent years, with the proposal of the government’s speed-up plan, more and more consumers in the region have used 4G networks, which has made 4G networks mainstream. Nowadays, the country has begun to vigorously advocate 5G construction. Many people think that 4G construction is nearing completion, but it is not.
According to “Wise Finance”, according to the operator’s plan, 4G will be parallel with 5G for a long time, and the total investment of 4G will still be parallel to 5G, even beyond 5G. China Unicom announced that it will recycle the 900MHz band of 2G networks in rural areas and remote areas for the development of 4G, which also indicates that 4G networks are still the main force in some sinking areas.
And, in the construction of 5G, operators should follow the national joint propaganda and sharing purpose of base stations. The location of 5G base stations should overlap with 4G as much as possible to reduce costs.
“It is too expensive to build a new station in 5G. In the early stage, the NSA model may be the main one, and the SA model is supplemented. After recovering some of the investment, the SA will be built.” A network optimization person in charge of the operator said to Wise Finance. .
With the person’s statement, he feels that the current cost of the operator 4G has not yetRecovered, and at the same time, more than one billion consumers across the country are using this network, they can not build 5G at a time. At the same time, he added: “The speed limit is not possible. It is possible to set a uniform threshold.”
Another Unicom insider said, “Operators have operators’ considerations, and sometimes you can’t do anything right.”
03 “4G phones are still the main force”
The emergence of 5G terminals may slow the sales of 4G terminals.
According to market research firm IDC, global mobile phone shipments have declined for two consecutive quarters. At the same time, major e-commerce and home appliance stores have begun to reduce the price of 4G mobile phones. In this regard, most of the market reaction is that 5G mobile phones are coming, and consumers are waiting to see.
“We sell very well here, not like you said.” A dealer in Hebei area
Wise Finance said. He said that every day, customers who come to buy mobile phones, almost no one cares about 5G mobile phones.
In some sinking markets of the 3rd and 4th lines, the supply of 4G mobile phones is still far beyond that of first- and second-tier cities. Here, 4G mobile phones are still the main force of sales.
In a county town under Baoding City, Hebei Province, the logo of Huami OV is particularly conspicuous. The posters contain the promotion information of the month. The sales prices in these areas are 200-300 yuan cheaper than those in the first- and second-tier cities.
A mobile phone shop owner told Wise Finance, “We basically sell machines of 1,000 yuan to 2,000 yuan. The glory, millet, and OV low-end machines are all sold very well. I have never heard of anyone coming. Ask 5G.”
“What is 5G? Now this is called 4G. It’s very fast to watch videos.”
“I feel very good, can watch the video on a WeChat video chat, which is more convenient than calling to save money.”
In the 4G era where traffic is like cabbage prices, more and more sinking market users are choosing the first 4G phones in their lives, and even more people are still in the 2/3G era.
The operators in many sinking markets are beginning to popularize the advantages and tariffs of 4G networks. Even in some areas, an old mobile phone plus 300 yuan can get a brand new 4G mobile phone. The sinking rural market is beginning to usher in a wave of change, and this is not the emerging 5G, but the 4G network we have used for five years.
In addition to buying new phones at carriers or mobile stores, second-hand 4G phones have become the scent of these regions. An iPhone 6 that supports 4G networks can be won for only 400-500 yuan, and iPhone 7 needs 900-1000 yuan.
In the county towns such as the Third and Fourth Lines, we have seen a large number of mobile phone stores with a variety of mobile phones of various brands, including the cottages that disappeared in the first and second lines, and these mountains