The Asian country is close to meeting its target of installing 500,000 base stations (antennas) this year after already placing more than 480,000, which is 96 percent of the target
This data was made public at the beginning of the month by the
Chinese brands such as
The analyst told Efe that the three main Chinese operators,
"The question now is how far they would like to go beyond that goal," he added.
There have also been difficulties with the project, such as problems finding places to install antennas, as they need to install more than with 4G networks because the new generation operates on a higher frequency band.
Some local governments have allowed them to be placed in public buildings and some, such as
Another issue is electricity consumption and Guang said each 5G base station consumes between three and four times more energy than 4G, which dramatically increases the costs of operators, so the executive is considering reducing electricity costs for these antennas.
The biggest obstacle in 2020 was the Covid-19 pandemic, which practically halted the deployment of the networks during the first months of the year.
Between January and March, lockdowns in
Guang also said that during those months large companies neglected to deploy new networks in favor of ensuring existing ones were able to serve customers confined to their homes, as well as the country's anti-pandemic initiatives.
Since April, when apart from occasional resurgences the country began to bring the contagion under control, deployment tasks were resumed.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in May announced strong investments in new infrastructure such as 5G networks to boost the post-coronavirus economic recovery.
Guang said: "In the short term, investment in 5G networks could boost GDP growth.
"In the medium and long term, 5G could be a key infrastructure for the digital transformation to improve productivity."
The importance of 5G to the country's political elites is by no means limited to this year.
Industry and information technology minister Xiao Yaqing recently stated that
Guang warned that although the executive is pushing operators to accelerate the deployment of new generation networks, this has not translated into service revenue growth in the consumer market, so he expects them to focus more on corporate clients by taking advantage of the standalone system.
Apart from the operators and the government, the main players in
Guang estimated that the
Regarding whether
"Being state-owned companies, Chinese operators must support Chinese vendors, and they have no reason not to choose
Not everything is rosy for
"If they cut off
© 2020 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc., source