5G commercial immature 6G concept has been released
Li Na
In the test field of real technology, 5G commercial products have begun to take shape and gradually become commercialized [The 6G network can provide a network speed of 1Tbps, and its Sub-1THZ spectrum can aggregate trillions of mobile devices, not just the billions provided by the 5G network.]
5G network, 5G mobile phone, 5G tablet, 5G first call... With the forthcoming issuance of 5G license in China, the popularity of 5G is no longer limited to the capital market where the red and green lines intersect. In the test field of real science and technology, 5G commercial products have begun to take shape, and are gradually "growing" towards commercialization.
not long ago, China Unicom The 5G application and innovation joint laboratory was officially launched, and Huang Wenliang, the chief innovation officer of China Unicom, introduced that China Unicom will carry out the construction of 5G pilot commercial and industrial application promotion in 2019~2020. At present, in addition to China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom have launched relevant incubation plans on 5G application innovation.
However, there are many "noises" about 5G. The inconsistent pace of commercial use, high costs and fragmentation of applications in various countries around the world make the prospect of 5G less optimistic. Ville Petteri Ukonaho, senior analyst of Strategy Analytics, said, "In the short term, the risk of 5G is greater than the return for most manufacturers. He believed that it is important to be cautious about 5G's growth rate, equipment price and performance curve slope.
However, from the perspective of strategic layout, as the most promising technology layout in the future, 5G represents not only the new generation of communication technology revolution, but also the important task of "connecting economy" exploration before the advent of 6G. With the launch of 6G concept research this year, the commercialization of 5G is accelerating.
5G is "martyr" by two steps ahead
How much liquidity does 5G network have? Is the market mature enough? What kind of applications can become killer applications? These problems are like gambles that make it "hard for players to choose". Some insiders joke that "one step ahead of 5G application is a hero, and two steps ahead is a martyr."
The outbreak of the 5G market obviously has a higher threshold than the 3G/4G era. The main reason is the investment threshold on the one hand, and the market threshold on the other hand.
From the perspective of investment, if the spectrum efficiency improvement is not high, operators are faced with the risk that the investment is difficult to recover.
Some telecom operators once expressed a pessimistic attitude towards 5G investment. "Buying equipment from traditional equipment manufacturers is a huge expense. I'm afraid some traditional equipment manufacturers cannot survive on the road from 4G to 5G." A technical executive of Deutsche Telekom said that most of the investment is in 5G wireless access networks, and the return on investment is too low. In order to control costs, 5G cannot be invested according to the past model.
Such a cold warning is due to the concern and disappointment of DEC on the investment cost of 5G wireless access network. Deutsche Electric estimates that the investment in 5G wireless access accounts for 50% to 70% of the total investment in 5G, which is an astronomical figure.
At present, the vast majority of telecommunications resources have not been fully utilized. In the past, equipment manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE and Ericsson produced products and operators put them into use through test bidding. But the efficiency of products actually put into the market may not reach 40%.
From the perspective of market incubation, although China's per capita traffic usage is close to 2GB every month, and it doubles every eight months, with a growth rate of 160%, no enterprise dares to say that it has found "killer" applications. The research report of Strategy Analytics points out that 5G is not a panacea for industry ills, whether for operators or equipment manufacturers. There may be a lot of hard work, experiments and failures in the next five years.
"From the current trend, 5G investment is really difficult to turn into profit. 2G is voice business, 3G and 4G are traffic business, and the traffic business model has come to an end. The 5G profit model needs to be reconsidered." Bi Qi, chief engineer of China Telecom Research Institute, believes that promoting the development of vertical industries requires changing thinking, and whether personalized services can be provided, It will be the key to determine the success of 5G in the future.
"From 1G to 5G, it is the idea of cost reduction and unified service. Today, we need to change our thinking and turn it into big data, artificial intelligence and personalized service. We believe that personalized service is the key to the success of 5G in the future. If we do not do personalized service, 5G will encounter a major bottleneck in its development. The development of vertical industry is actually the process of personalized service. " Birch said.
Taking China Telecom as an example, a 5G application innovation alliance has been established, focusing on vertical industries such as mobile broadband applications, ultra-high definition video and smart cities. A person in charge of Guangdong Unicom told reporters that at present, China Unicom is trying to accelerate the implementation of 5G applications in an innovative way of "wild goose formation", including working with Tencent BYD , Foxconn Han's Laser Citroen, Hualong Xunda, Huaxing Optoelectronics, Hongdian Technology and other enterprises cooperate to promote the application of 5G in the vertical industry.
Previously, Unicom and automatic driving start-up Jingchi Technology reached a 5G strategic cooperation to jointly establish a "5G joint innovation laboratory" based on L4 level unmanned driving, which is also the first 5G application innovation joint laboratory based on end-to-end application testing in China.
6G concept "detent"
Although the application of 5G is still in the exploration stage, in the highly competitive communication industry, the technology start-up cycle is often carried out in advance.
Miao Wei, minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said as early as March this year that China has started to develop 6G networks. In the future, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned vehicles and those far away robot Assistants and so on need the Internet of Things to achieve. The 6G network communication technology mainly promotes the development of the Internet of Things.
From 1G to 5G, in order to improve the rate and capacity, mobile communication is expanding towards more spectrum and higher frequency band. 5G has expanded from less than 6GHz to millimeter wave band, and 6G will step into the era of terahertz (THz). That is to say, the 6G network can provide 1Tbps network speed, and its Sub-1THZ spectrum can aggregate trillions of mobile devices, not just the billions provided by the 5G network.
At present, in addition to China, the United States, Russia, the European Union and other countries and regions are also carrying out related conceptual design and research and development work. It is expected that research and development will officially start in 2020, and will be officially put into commercial use in 2030.
In the opinion of industry insiders, if 5G is a world of intelligent Internet of Everything, and applications such as Internet of Vehicles and telemedicine need a full coverage network with almost no blind spots, then 6G network will be a fully connected world integrating ground wireless and satellite communication. By integrating satellite communication into 6G mobile communication, we can achieve seamless global coverage, enable network signals to reach any remote village, enable patients in deep mountain areas to receive telemedicine, and enable children to receive distance education. This is the future of 6G.
A Huawei research and development personnel told reporters that 5G may bring three breakthroughs, namely, surpassing the speed of optical fiber, the demand of industrial control bus, and the coverage of current wireless technology. The technology cluster in the 5G era will reconstruct the resource allocation mode of the digital world and the physical world and bring a new digital world in the future if it goes beyond the mobility connection of traditional technologies.
The above people said that, taking factories as an example, Huawei is currently exploring a digital factory with its partners for real-time mirroring, which will bring revolutionary changes. In the future, factories will become truly automated factories. "In the future, there will be nothing in the factory. Put these robots in the factory, and they will be directly combined into production lines according to the software definition. When adjustment is needed, the production and operation will be directly restructured through the software. Materials will also be delivered through material robots and logistics robots. The entire production line will become flexible manufacturing. In the 6G era, all this can be easily accomplished. "
In any case, the real 6G may be far away from the life of ordinary people, but for enterprises, technology iteration requires time cost, and the competition of 6G has actually begun.
Editor in charge: Li Feng
