Radio and television plans to increase the number of 700MHz 5g base stations to 280000 this year. At the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Telecommunication and information society day conference held recently, song Qizhu, chairman of China Radio and Television Network Group Co., Ltd., confirmed that in 2021, radio and television and mobile jointly built 200000 700MHz 5g base stations, and 280000 base stations will be completed in 2022, realizing the basic coverage of 5g in areas above counties and towns, and gradually extending to rural areas.
2019 is the first year of 5g in China. That year, we saw the launch of some 5g mobile phones with external baseband and the Kirin 990 integrated 5g processor known as "ice cream". In addition to the frequent actions of mobile phone manufacturers, in June of this year, China Radio and television obtained 5g commercial license and became the fourth largest communication operator in China.
The first batch of radio and television is section 192, which is planned to start operation from May 17, 2022. However, considering that radio and television has entered the communication field late, it has not been opened on a large scale so far. Radio and television still needs some time to prepare before it can face all domestic consumers. As ordinary consumers, we should consider how far radio and television can go in the communication industry and whether it is worth our choice.
700MHz, the largest killer of radio and television
In the communication industry, radio and television are not unprepared. The biggest killer in hand is the 700MHz band. This frequency band was originally used for radio and television, and many overseas countries and regions have used it for mobile communication. After the advent of 5g era, the Ministry of industry and information technology has launched many measures to help the development and popularization of 5g network. The most critical point is to release the 2100mhz and 700MHz frequency bands to operators.
700MHz originally belongs to radio and television. Naturally, it is still in the hands of radio and television. With this big killer, radio and television and mobile have reached a cooperation, and they jointly build 700MHz 5g frequency band. Compared with the common 2.6GHz 5g frequency band, the coverage radius of 700MHz frequency band is fully twice that of 2.6GHz, and the coverage is about 4 ~ 5 times that of 2.6GHz. Only 500000 ~ 600000 base stations are needed to achieve basic domestic coverage.
Not only the coverage is larger, but also the penetration capacity of 700MHz is improved a lot. In big cities with high-rise buildings, we often encounter the problem of weak signal. After the signal sent by the base station passes through several floors of walls, the signal strength will decrease sharply, resulting in our unsatisfactory Internet experience.
With the 700MHz frequency band, the cost of building 5g base stations for radio and television will be greatly reduced. It is precisely because radio and television holds the 700MHz frequency band that China Mobile, the largest operator in China, will choose to cooperate with it in order to reduce the construction and maintenance costs of 5g base stations.
Of course, this does not mean that the 700MHz frequency band has no shortcomings, the frequency is low, the bandwidth and capacity will be relatively small, and it cannot be used as the main base station of 5g network. Radio, television and mobile, is to use 700MHz 5g base station as a supplement to 5g network, which is suitable for sparsely populated rural areas.
China covers an area of 9.6 million square kilometers, and there are many small villages with small population. The cost of deploying high-frequency 5g base stations in these areas is too high, and the economic benefit of 700MHz band is obviously higher.
In front of radio and television, there are also many problems
As one of the earliest communication companies in China, China Telecom has been split many times, which also makes it difficult for Telecom to go on the road of mobile communication. Fortunately, today, China Telecom has become one of the three Royal companies. After combining with China Unicom, it is enough to compete with China Mobile. But how did telecommunications rise?
I still remember in high school, the mobile traffic was 5 yuan 30MB, 10 yuan 70mb, and the Unicom traffic was 10 yuan 100MB. A classmate in the class used a telecom mobile phone card, 5 yuan 100MB. So when I bought my first mobile phone, I went into the telecom business hall and bought a customized mobile phone from Huawei Telecom.
At that time, the mobile phone card used by Telecom was called UIM card, which was not common with ordinary mobile phones with SIM cards. Later, when changing mobile phones, Xiao Lei bought a customized Telecom mobile phone from Coolpad. It can be said that many people around Xiao Lei came into contact with telecom cards and became telecom users because the tariff of Telecom was very cheap at that time.
However, radio and television can not take the road of telecommunications, because radio and television lags far behind, and there is no 2G / 3G / 4G base station at all. This is not to say that radio and television cards cannot use networks other than 5g. In the statement of cooperation with mobile, the two enterprises have confirmed that radio and television will use mobile 2G and 4G base stations for compensation.
This involves a problem, that is, cost. At that time, although the situation of Telecom in the mobile operator industry was not particularly good, it was still good as a whole. The company was in a profitable State, so it had money to build base stations and provide low-cost traffic packages. Radio and television is different. In June 2020, Beijing Gehua cable released the detailed equity change report, which disclosed the operation of radio and television for the first time.
In 2019, China's Radio and television revenue was 1.951 billion yuan and the net profit loss was 244 million yuan. Even if the radio and television situation improves in the past two years, it will only turn losses into profits. The revenue is estimated to be one tenth of that of China Telecom 10 years ago. Therefore, it is too difficult for radio and television to take the cost-effective route. The 2G and 4G costs paid by the company must also be passed on to consumers. It is enough to ensure that the package is not more expensive than mobile, China Unicom and Telecom.
Moreover, there is still a problem in radio and television, that is, the proud 700MHz band, which is the n28 band emphasized by the Ministry of industry and information technology and mobile phone manufacturers in the past two years. From 2021, 5g mobile phones supporting n28 band began to increase. In other words, users two years ago probably didn't support 700MHz.
In recent years, the average change time of domestic users has been increasing, the sales of new phones have decreased sharply, and the sales of second mobile phones have increased. If the mobile phone does not support N78 band, users do not need to buy Radio and television mobile phone cards. The business of radio and television operators has just started, and the experience may not be as perfect as that of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.
Xiaolei thought of a way for radio and television to attract users, that is to let consumers notice radio and television mobile phone cards by putting beautiful numbers. There are too many users of China Mobile, China Unicom and Telecom. Although the mobile phone card is good, there are not many beautiful numbers. Radio and television section 192 has just released numbers, and there will certainly be many beautiful numbers. Radio and television can use this as a gimmick to attract a group of consumers.
How far can radio and television go?
Although the original Telecom mobile communication business can not compare with China Mobile and China Unicom, the broadband business is the domestic overlord, and its volume is not small. Radio and television is not the case. Although there are TV and broadband services and even 8K TV services, the revenue and profit are too low. Now we are qualified to speak in the operator industry by holding the thigh of mobile. Xiao Lei presumptuously said that radio and television should not take entering the operator as simply launching a new business, but as an opportunity for enterprise transformation.
Although the volume of radio and television is small, it has reached cooperation with mobile, at least in terms of user experience. With the big killer of 700MHz band, it will have some advantages in the 5g era. As long as the service and package charges are well done, it can still attract some users. As for whether it can be as successful as telecom, no one dares to guarantee now. Everything depends on the business strategy and market changes of radio and television.
From the standpoint of consumers, we naturally hope that more operators will appear. The more operators there are, the fiercer the competition between them will be, and the faster the package tariff will decline. Before, netizens called for overseas operators to enter the domestic market and put pressure on China Mobile, China Unicom and Telecom.
These netizens may not understand the situation of the global mobile communication industry. More than 70% of the world's 4G and 5g base stations are in China. Until today, the British capital London subway has not been able to achieve full coverage. Xiaolei can use 5g network smoothly in Guangzhou subway except for a few stations. Foreign package charges are very expensive. In order to bind users, mobile phone manufacturers have to cooperate with operators. When buying mobile phones in European and American markets, there are almost only contract machines available.
After entering the Chinese market, overseas operators will not bother to build so many base stations for us. There are more than 1 billion mobile phone users in China. In densely populated areas, multiple 5g base stations are needed to ensure that the network will not get stuck. Therefore, even if overseas operators enter the Chinese market, their experience cannot be compared with that of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. Relevant domestic departments have issued several orders to require operators to speed up and reduce fees, so that we can enjoy today's package tariff.
The only way to get domestic operators involved is to cultivate our own operator enterprises. Now, China Radio and television has joined, and the experience may not be good enough, but Xiaolei still hopes that users can be more tolerant to radio and television, so that radio and television can develop rapidly. The competition among the four enterprises should be more intense than that of the three.