Around 20,000 5G base stations constructed across the country

Nearly 20,000 5G base stations have been built in China by the end of June, with 90 percent of these base stations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, business news portal 21jingji.com reported on Friday.

Beijing has constructed 7,863 5G base stations by the end of July, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have set up 3,000, 5,000 and 3,777 5G stations by the end of June, respectively, said the news portal, citing public data.

5G not only can download a 10G video in 9 seconds, but also can deeply integrate with industry, transportation and medical care to form the strategic emerging industries such as industrial internet, automatic driving, and telemedicine, Zhu Fusheng, an industry expert, told 21jingji.com.

The well-developed regions have pressing needs to industry transformation and upgrading, Zhu said.

Guangdong, one of China economic powerhouses, enhanced its annual target to build 5G base stations to 32,000 from 20,000 after the country granted 5G licenses for commercial use in June.

China will build 150,000 5G base stations this year, 50 percent higher than expected at the beginning of the year, said the news portal, citing the CCID Consulting.

The cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Hangzhou, plan to build more than 10,000 5G base stations by the end of this year, according to the CCID Consulting.

The commercial use of 5G is expected to directly bring 10.6 trillion yuan in economic output between 2020 to 2025, and will create 2.9 trillion yuan in value-added economy, 8 million jobs and contribute 6 percent of GDP by 2030, said the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

The revenue from network equipment and terminal equipment will reach 450 billion yuan at the 5G commercial use initial stage, the revenue from the terminal equipment will be 140 million yuan at the medium term, and the revenue from service provided by 5G internet companies will hit 2.6 trillion yuan at the middle and later periods, said Liu Duo, president of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

However, the cost to build the 5G base station is also high, said 21jingji.com.

As the coverage radius of the 5G base station is about 100-300 meters, that is less than the 4G base station's coverage radius, the 5G base station will be more intensive, said the news portal, citing Liu Peitao, an industry expert.

China had 3.72 million 4G base stations in 2018, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Calculating based on two time of the 4G base station's number, the country will build at least seven million 5G base stations in the future, said the 21jingji.com.

Moreover, the investment of a 5G base station is about 1.5 to 3 times of a 4G base station, Peng Jian, an expert at CCID Consulting, told the news portal.

China Mobile plans to invest 17.2 billion yuan to operate 30,000 to 50,000 5G base stations to realize 5G commercial use in over 50 Chinese cities by the end of this year.

In addition, China Unicom will invest 6 billion yuan to 8 billion yuan to build 20,000 5G base stations to cover 33 Chinese cities, and China Telecom's investment will be 9 billion yuan to build 20,000 5G base stations in more than 40 Chinese cities this year.

To achieve the same coverage as the 4G network, the investment to build 5G networks will hit 4 trillion yuan, and the electricity consumption will account for more than 40 percent of 5G network operating costs.

The 5G base stations sharing should be increased to avoid repeated construction on 5G base stations to reduce financial waste, Peng Jian said.