Operators have also worked hard to develop 5G. The recent news is that operators have asked mobile phone companies to cancel the 5G switch, which shows that operators have already ignored their heads. The main reason for the embarrassing development of 5G is the problem of the 5G network itself. due to.
It has been almost 4 years since 5G was put into commercial use. However, there are only more than 2 million 5G base stations today, and each 5G network has only more than 1 million 5G base stations. This is far from being able to form a 5G network with complete coverage.
China Mobile commercialized 4G in 2014, and built 700,000 4G base stations in just one year. By 2018, it has built more than 2.4 million 4G base stations, and the 4G frequency band is 1.8GHz; now China Mobile's 5G network is only more than 120 There are ten thousand 5G base stations, and the 5G frequency band is mainly 2.6GHz. Industry insiders pointed out that the coverage of about three 5G base stations is equivalent to that of one 4G base station.
Because the 5G frequency band is too high, not only the coverage of the 5G network is not good enough, but also in areas where the 5G network already exists in the city, it is difficult for the 5G signal to penetrate obstacles such as walls, which leads to the 5G signal in corner areas such as toilets and stairwells. , let alone vast rural areas.
As a result, the number of 5G package users of operators has exceeded 1 billion, while the number of 5G network users is less than 600 million. Many users continue to use 4G mobile phones, and users who bought 5G mobile phones also choose to turn off the 5G function. , In order to encourage users to use 5G networks, operators require mobile phone companies to cancel the 5G switch and force users to use 5G networks.
The reason why users are reluctant to use 5G networks is that consumers complain about the high price of 5G packages. The price of 5G packages announced by operators’ business halls is generally nearly 100 yuan, which is undoubtedly compared with the average ARPU of users, which is only about 50 yuan. It is too expensive, which has also made the remaining hundreds of millions of users less and less willing to switch to 5G packages.
What's interesting is that although the 5G packages on the surface are still expensive, operators continue to promote low-priced 5G packages to users in telemarketing. The package of a certain operator I used is as low as 29 yuan. These low-priced packages are all It is recommended by the operator's customer service phone, but it is not available in the operator's business hall.
The key for operators to promote users to switch to 5G networks is to improve 5G signals. We have seen gratifying progress in this regard. China Mobile and China Radio and Television have jointly built a 700MHz 5G network. China Unicom has obtained a license to build a 900MHz 5G network. The construction of 5G networks in these low-frequency bands will greatly improve 5G network coverage, but the consequence is that low-frequency 5G will be far from reaching the theoretical data transmission speed of 5G.
For consumers, the construction of 5G networks at 700MHz and 900MHz will eliminate a number of 5G mobile phones. Most mobile phones before October 2021 will not support 700MHz 5G. The only mobile phone that can fully support 700MHz and 900MHz 5G is the iPhone, Apple’s The first-generation 5G mobile phone iPhone 12 already supports these frequency bands, and the iPhone is also the mobile phone that supports the most 5G frequency bands in the world.
It can be seen that operators have indeed taken many measures to develop 5G. They have really made many substantial efforts for the development of 5G. However, due to the defects of high-frequency 5G, the efforts of operators are half the result with twice the effort, which makes operators helpless. However, I believe that the efforts of operators will eventually succeed, and consumers will gradually accept 5G after all.