The heads of China's four major mobile operators reviewed the progress in the domestic commercial use of 5G since it was officially rolled out last November, during the opening ceremony of the second World 5G Convention in Guangzhou on Thursday, and shed light on strategies for the next stage of high-quality development.

"China Telecom is working on the technological innovation of standalone (SA) 5G networks," said Ke Ruiwen, chairman of China Telecom, during his speech.

Ke explained that his company has taken the lead in deploying SA commercial networks nationwide. Back in June, it led the work of GSMA - an international association of mobile operators - in proposing guidance on the technological, spectrum and regulatory considerations of SA Option 2.

Recalling the company's efforts during the construction of the Huoshenshan and Leishenshan makeshift hospitals in Wuhan, Ke said that China Telecom gave full play to its cloud-network integration technologies. He added that the company managed to install 5G base stations in 36 hours to provide livestreams of the construction work for hundreds of millions of netizens.

Ke is also focused on the safety issues of 5G networks. "More efforts should be made to coordinate the safety of the internet, cloud networking, terminal connections, data and personal information," Ke urged, adding that the company has introduced a cloud platform in this regard for commercial use.

Chairman of China Unicom Wang Xiaochu spoke about his company's collaboration with China Telecom in creating the world's largest 5G network - which is also the first of its kind to be built and shared by two mobile operators. 

Wang said that China Unicom has worked to fight COVID-19 and has basically completed 5G network coverage for urban areas of cities above prefectural-level three months ahead of schedule.

"China Unicom has successfully delivered the world's fastest network speed of 2.7Gb/s using mid-band spectrum, rolling out SA commercial 5G in more than 300 Chinese cities," Wang explained. This has laid a solid foundation for the circulation of 5G industrial, supply and value chains domestically.

According to Wang, China Unicom will achieve large-scale coverage of 5G networks in major urban areas, highways, railways, major counties and villages across China in the next three years or so. It will also work with parties along the industrial chain in an inclusive manner to promote the smart transformation of industries and facilitate the digital economy.

In addition, China Mobile is accelerating its construction of a big data center for 5G industrial IoT, said the company's general manager Dong Xin.

"China Mobile has put 385,000 base stations into operation across China, and over 90 million families have become our 5G end users," Dong explained. "While striving to build 5G networks, we are also working to ensure the consistent speed of our 4G services."

Dong stressed that there is still more work to be done regarding infrastructure. "We are working to facilitate new types of consumption activities, including cloud services, digital currency and digital identity," he added.

Chairman of the newly established China Broadcasting Network (CBN) Song Qizhu suggested mobile operators should cooperate to improve 5G network coverage, product quality, and services.

Song also proposed integrating 5G networks into all business forms. "CBN will work to make digital progress accessible for people in remote areas and less developed counties and villages in China," Song added. "We will integrate 5G networks in the cultural industry, government affairs, commerce, education and healthcare, so as to promote new types of urbanization and facilitate the development of the new countryside."

As of this October, there were more than 700,000 5G base stations across China, as well as over 180 million terminal connections nationwide.

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