China Mobile unveils upgraded, next-gen version of 5G network
China Mobile and its partners announced network upgrade trends of the future in Shanghai.
China's next-generation 5G development, known as 5.5G, features energy efficiency, enhanced computing capabilities and support for artificial intelligence and metaverse applications, the world's biggest mobile carrier China Mobile said on Tuesday.
The network upgrade supports new applications such as AI and metaverse as well as a wider range of industry integration, like the ongoing autonomous driving test in Shanghai, China Mobile said during a forum as part of the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai.
The Mobile World Congress, or MWC Shanghai 2023, the biggest telecommunications exhibition in Asia, will officially open on Wednesday.
China Mobile has so far built 1.7 million 5G base stations nationwide to cover 85 percent of the country's population. It has 470 million 5G mobile end users, according to Li Huidi, China Mobile's vice general manager.
With smart network management, China Mobile now cuts energy consumption by 3.5 billion kilowatt hours annually, which helps the carrier to achieve its carbon reduction and neutrality targets. By 2025, the peak download speed will improve 10 times compared with the 1 Gigabyte per second in current 5G networks. The computing capabilities will surpass 20 EFLOPS then, a key measure for AI training and usage ability.
China Mobile's 5G network will be an "AI self-intelligent, cloud integration, low-carbon and efficient network" in the future, Li told the MWC Shanghai Forum in explaining the company's definition of "5.5G network."
The spotlight upgrades include a mobile IPv6 network and New Calling services.
IPv6 is the next generation Internet Protocol (IP) standard intended to eventually replace IPv4. With SRv6 or Segment Routing technology, China Mobile offers almost unlimited IP address resources and programmable IP addresses. IPv6's mobile traffic in China Mobile's network has surpassed that of IPv4 for the first time, accounting 53.6 percent of total traffic now, according to China Mobile.
New Calling and other services are displayed at a MWC Shanghai event held by Chinese telecom giant Huawei in Shanghai. The congress will officially open on Wednesday.
The New Calling service supports video calling services on faster 5G network, offering higher definition compared with WeChat and other messenger services.
In Shanghai, China Mobile has established a 5G-advanced network, with a leading level nationwide for speed and computing capacity. The "dual-core" AI computing centers in suburban Qingpu District and Lingang area in Shanghai serve various firms and organizations in the whole Yangtze River Delta region.
The company has also pushed integration with more industries like industrial and autonomous driving. By 2025, China Mobile can offer network for L4 autonomous driving, a generation-leap compared with L2 to L2.5 currently.
Meanwhile, China Mobile plans to announce a new metaverse industry alliance with 24 members during the MWC Shanghai.
Shanghai has released a blueprint to boost the metaverse industry scale to surpass 50 billion yuan (US$6.94 billion) by 2025.
The city is establishing a "Shanghai Format" on 5G and AI and developing unique metaverse and autonomous driving experiences, Wang Tianguang, director of the Shanghai Communications Administration, told the forum.
The MWC Shanghai will be held at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. Exhibitors, including global mobile operators, device manufacturers, technology providers, vendors and content owners, will attend the three-day event.
