China Mobile has announced its plan of launching the trial run of 5G technology by 2017, rolling out around 10,000 5G base stations by 2020.

The world’s largest mobile operator will choose four to five cities in 2017, where it will lay out the facilities for system verification and development of pre-commercial prototypes. By 2018, China Mobile will choose another 20 cities across the country to have base stations for commercial test with the main goal of testing end-to-end services. 

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It will use 6GHz and below frequencies. The chosen cities will determine the potential of the new technology. The Chinese Mobile carrier will be focusing as well in testing higher frequency bands.

According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) officials, the Beijing-based mobile operator will concentrate its efforts on 5G research and development with a strong focal point on testing 5G products and services beginning in 2018. 

China’s IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group has announced the technical specifications for the second phase of 5G tests. According to China’s MIIT, the country will be able to accomplish 5G technology R&D tests between 2016 and 2018 and execute the product of R&D tests in from 2018 to 2020.

The Phase 1 standardization of 5G will be completed sometime in 2018. It assures that 5G technology will be available commercially in 2020.

China Mobile has 850 million subscribers, making it the world’s largest mobile operator. In October, the company has over 497 million LTE connections, and it aims to reach 500 million LTE connections by the end of 2016. It also plans to add 100,000 LTE base stations until the end of this year.

TagsChina Mobile, china, 5G Technology, 4G technology, LTE, 5G 2017