The Chinese carrier is conducting 5G field trials with ZTE and Huawei in Guangzhou and Shanghai
SHANGHAI–China Unicom has not yet defined a timeline for the commercial launch of 5G technology, Deputy General Manager of the Network Construction Department Ma Hongbing told reporters during Mobile World Congress Shanghai.
“The key elements that will make the deployment of 5G feasible and commercially possible are not yet finalized, so we are not in a position to have a clear timeline towards the deployment of this technology,” the executive said on the sidelines of the event, which wrapped up last week.
“I believe that the fact mobile operators will deploy commercial 5G in two or three years is a kind of general overview at this point but it is not something definitive,” he said.
The executive said ROI will be one of the main challenges facing operators willing to deploy 5G technology as many of them are still deploying 4G infrastructure.
China Unicom has conducted a number of lab trials of 5G technology during the last year with a number of vendors including ZTE, Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson. “We have also worked with ZTE and Huawei this year in field trials in Shanghai and Guangzhou,” the executive added.
Ma also highlighted that China Unicom is currently working in a number of virtualization projects, mainly for the telco’s core network infrastructure.
China Unicom already offers NB-IoT technology in a number of cities including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Fuzhou, with applications including smart parking, smart fire sensors and smart meter services.
China Unicom ended May with over 268 million subscribers in the mobile telephony segment, after adding nearly 1 million customers during the month, according to China Unicom’s latest available data. In the 4G segment, the Chinese telco ended May with 133.4 million subscribers.
