Chinese mobile operators had deployed a total of 32,681 5G base stations in Sichuan Province by July, state news agency Xinhua reported, citing an official report.
According to the report, total investments in 5G deployments in this province already reached CNY11.32 billion ($1.65 billion).
The report also highlighted that Sichuan hosts more than 240 enterprises related to the 5G industry chain, including at least 146 5G operators and terminal application service enterprises, 44 5G primary equipment and network architecture service enterprises and 50 5G chip and component service providers.
“We have focused our 5G research in infrastructure, policy support, industrial application, industrial ecology and innovation capability,” said Zhou Liang, head of the experts panel of the provincial 5G industry alliance.
“In the recent two years, Sichuan has accelerated the construction of 5G infrastructure, leading the country in network construction and application innovation”, said Pi Yiming, deputy head of the Sichuan Provincial Economic and Information Department.
Chinese cities are in the midst of a massive deployment of base stations, with Shenzhen recently becoming the first Chinese city to achieve full-scale 5G deployment.
Shenzhen, which had already deployed 46,480 5G base stations, was one of the first pilot cities for 5G networks in China.
The city, a southern tech hub in Guangdong Province, is home to telecoms giant Huawei Technologies and other Chinese tech companies including ZTE and Tencent Holdings.
China’s capital Beijing built a total of 5,135 5G base stations in the first half of this year, according to recent press reports. Beijing authorities said that they expect to complete the construction of 13,000 5G base stations before the end of the year. By June, the total number of 5G base stations in Beijing had reached 22,500.
Meanwhile, Shanghai has previously stated its commitment to investing CNY 10 billion ($1.4 billion) in 5G network construction this year, with the city anticipating 30,000 outdoor 5G base stations and 50,000 indoor small cell stations built by the end of 2020.
South China’s Guangdong Province had built over 78,000 5G base stations as of the end of June. In the first half of the year, the province completed the construction of 41,401 stations with the number of 5G users exceeding 14.34 million.
Chinese operators built a total of 257,000 new 5G base stations in the first half of the year, according to recent data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
The total number of 5G base stations in China had reached 410,000 by the end of June, MIIT data showed. Chinese mobile operators are expected to deploy over 600,000 5G base stations by the end of the year, covering cities above the prefecture level in the country.
In June 2019, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) officially issued licenses for the launch of commercial 5G networks in the country. Those 5G permits were granted to China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and state-owned broadcaster China Broadcasting Network.
