China Unicom plans to achieve seamless 5G-A coverage in urban areas of 39 cities across China by July this year
Chinese carrier China Unicom aims to establish continuous 5G-Advanced (5G-A) coverage in key areas across 300 cities by the end of 2025, following initial pilot deployments in major cities in 2024, local press reported.
By July this year, the company plans to achieve seamless 5G-A coverage in urban areas of 39 cities before expanding further.
The telco announced its 5G-A plans in Harbin, coinciding with the Asian Winter Games. The initiative focuses on strengthening three key scenario capabilities: enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), massive machine-type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable low-latency communications (uRLLC). Additionally, it advances three innovative technologies: integrated communication and sensing, integrated sky and earth networks and integrated communication and intelligence.
The report noted that China Unicom currently operates the world’s largest 240 MHz mid-band TDD+FDD aggregated bandwidth, the largest 300MHz mid-band TDD aggregated bandwidth for indoor coverage and a combined mid-band and millimeter-wave bandwidth of 1000MHz.
This infrastructure enables an advanced 5G-A service experience with speeds ranging from 5Gbps to 10Gbps, the report added.
As a key partner of the 9th Asian Winter Games, China Unicom has deployed a 10 Gbps 5G-Advanced network at major venues. China Unicom said that this infrastructure will provide high-speed connectivity for athletes, staff and spectators, enhanced media broadcasting, including multi-channel HD live streaming and VR broadcasting as well as AI-powered network optimization for seamless performance.
At the time of the launch, Huawei said that the network supports a 5G-Advanced smart commercial complex, with high- and low-band integrated networking, at the Workers’ Stadium, in capital Beijing. Furthermore, the pair also announced a large-scale 10-gigabit 5G-Advanced network featuring air-ground integrated communications at the Great Wall scenic area.
The vendor also noted that this large-scale commercial three component carrier (3CC) network covers over 10 million people in Beijing with 5G-Advanced technology.
The new 5G-Advanced network in Beijing covers stadiums, schools, scenic areas, metro stations, commercial areas, residential areas as well as other types of facilities in Beijing. The network provides full 5G coverage and 85% 5G-Advanced coverage for the area within Beijing’s 4th Ring Road and the Beijing Municipal Administrative Center, effectively supporting services like immersive videos, UHD live streaming and cloud gaming.
China Unicom Beijing, Sinobo, GTVerse and Huawei have created an integrated 5G-Advanced network at the Workers’ Stadium. A large number of 5G-Advanced 3CC sites have been deployed both inside and outside the venue. Huawei highlighted that field tests recorded a downlink peak rate of 11.2 Gbps, allowing a crowd of up to 68,000 people to simultaneously watch 1080p videos. Meanwhile, the uplink peak rate reached 4 Gbps, sufficient to support services like UHD shallow compression.
At the Great Wall scenic area, the Beijing Yanqing District Government and China Unicom Beijing have jointly deployed 10-gigabit 5G-Advanced base stations at scale, to offer uninterrupted network coverage both on the ground and in low-altitude airspace. This supports efforts to explore low-altitude operational scenarios in tourism, logistics, emergency rescue and scenic area protection.
Huawei had launched a new set of 5G-Advanced solutions during the company’s Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2024 (MBBF 2024) in Istanbul, Turkey.
