At an important time when 5G was in full swing, a document of the National Radio Office (hereinafter referred to as the document) was circulated on the Internet. The document shows that the three operators have reached a consensus on the frequency adjustment plans for 900MHz, 1900MHz and 2600MHz bands, and put forward a clear adjustment time.
As early as December 2018, the three operators obtained 5G spectrum respectively. China Mobile acquires 160M resources of 2515-2675 MHz, and 40M belongs to China Telecom and China Unicom. So China Mobile is also withdrawing some spectrum to the other two.
Among them, China Mobile's low-frequency resource of 900MHz has attracted much attention. Earlier news showed that China Mobile's 900MHz spectrum resources will be allocated to China Unicom by the end of 2019. However, the parties failed to reach a clear consensus and there was no timetable for withdrawal.
The leaked information shows that the operators have no controversy over the spectrum redistribution scheme.
Overall, China Mobile retreated 15M spectrum resources and obtained 40M spectrum resources. China Telecom retreated 20M spectrum resources and obtained 1580-1885MHz spectrum resources of 5M. China Unicom retreated 20M spectrum resources and obtained 10M low frequency 900MHz resources. This adjustment will affect the development of operators'2G network services, and will accelerate the development of operators VoLTE and NB-IoT.
Spectrum adjustment: clear vacation schedule
The document contains three main contents. Firstly, in terms of frequency adjustment in the 2600MHz band, China Telecom plans to complete 2635-2655MHz band frequency decay in 15 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) such as Tianjin, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia by the end of June 2019, and nationwide band frequency decay by the end of September 2019.
China Unicom also plans to complete 2555-2575 MHz frequency decay in 27 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) except Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangdong by the end of June 2019, and 2555-2575 MHz frequency decay nationwide by the end of July 2019.
Secondly, in the frequency adjustment of 1880-1885 MHz band, China Mobile plans to complete the frequency decay of four provinces (municipalities directly under the Central Government) in Shanghai, Henan, Guangxi and Chongqing by the end of August 2019, and in Hebei, Anhui and Jiangxi by the end of October, 1880-1885 MHz bands in nine provinces (autonomous regions) in Guangdong, Hainan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia. Frequency evaporation will be completed nationwide by the end of December.
Finally, in the frequency adjustment of 904-909MHz/949-954MHz band, China Mobile has come up with a clear timetable, which mainly contains two key information.
On the one hand, by the end of 2019, China Mobile will complete 900MHz frequency evacuation in three batches in the countryside (counties and below). At the end of July and August 2019, China Mobile completed the frequency decay of Jilin and Guizhou counties (county-level cities) and the following administrative regions respectively. At the end of September, China Mobile completed the frequency decay of Ningxia, Sichuan, Yunnan, Heilongjiang, Gansu and Fujian provinces (autonomous regions) and counties (county-level cities) and the following administrative regions. By the end of November, China Mobile completed counties (counties) nationwide. Frequency of municipalities at or below the level of administrative areas has dropped.
On the other hand, there are clear plans for 900MHz frequency evacuation in cities, which are specific to each city. By the end of December 2019, China Mobile will complete the frequency evacuation work in 40% of cities; by the end of March 2020, it will complete the frequency evacuation work in 50% of cities; and by the end of May 2020, it will complete the remaining 10% of urban evacuation work.
From the frequency band resources, when the retirement work is completed, the 5M frequency of China Mobile 949-954MHz will be given to China Unicom. This also indicates that China Mobile's 900M spectrum resources will be reduced from the previous 20M to 15M; on the contrary, China Unicom's 900M spectrum resources will be increased from the previous 6M to 11M. In addition, China Mobile also plans to re-cultivate the spectrum of 900MHz resources above 5M and build a 4G network. China Mobile will cut its back on using 900MHz resources of 2G.
Meet the pain, but 2G withdrawal will be the trend of the times
For operators, low-frequency resources are particularly valuable. Based on low spectrum resources, operators can achieve wide covera ge with fewer base stations. This not only reduces the cost of network construction, but also reduces the subsequent maintenance costs. Therefore, the withdrawal of China Mobile's 2G spectrum will affect the business of China Mobile's 2G network, including 2G voice and 2G Internet of Things.
This effect has been evident before. For example, the well-known POS machine is to access the operator's 2G network by means of built-in flow card, to send and receive data, and to complete transactions with UnionPay or Payment Institutions.
With the promotion of 2G withdrawal pilot work of operators, POS manufacturers have feedback, and GSM has been affected by hot area access and business response experience. Imagine that if China Mobile cut its 2G network resources in half by the end of 2019, the stability of such access and business response experience will be further exacerbated.
But 2G withdrawal is the trend of the times. The outdated network must make way for the advanced network. Better spectrum resources should be used in more important business. Only in this way can operators maintain competitiveness and vitality and not be eliminated by the times. So we can see that there are many voices in the industry calling on operators to accelerate the withdrawal process of 2G/3G network and increase the investment of 4G/5G.
It is worth mentioning that, with the issuance of 5G licenses in China, it is impossible for operators to spend huge funds on the operation of 2G/3G/4G/5G network. Therefore, when operators build a new generation of network, 2G withdrawal from the historical stage is the general trend. From the perspective of foreign operators, operators in more than 20 countries, such as the United States, Australia, Thailand, shut down 2G networks as early as the era of 4G. For example, KDDI in Japan has withdrawn 2G in 2008, Australian Telecom has withdrawn 2G in 2016, and Verizon will also withdraw 2G in 2019.
VoLTE and NB-IoT Need to Accelerate Development
Due to the reduction of spectrum resources in 2G network, operators need to accelerate the migration to 4G based on 2G voice, Internet of Things and many other services. This means that the development of VoLTE and NB-IoT will accelerate.
In VoLTE, some people believe that short-term operators can not quickly transfer voice services from 2G to 4G, cultivate a large number of VoLTE users, so they will still use 2G network as the voice base network. However, from the current progress, China Mobile began to reduce the input of 2G resources. In addition to the reasons for spectrum adjustment, it also shows that China Mobile's investment in VoLTE for many years has been able to carry a large number of users'voice needs. According to the results of the first half of 2019, the proportion of China Mobile's 4G VoLTE subscribers has reached 61.5%, and more than 450 million registered VoLTE subscribers have been developed.
China Telecom and China Unicom are also working on VoLTE. China Telecom announced on November 29, 2018 that VoLTE was commercially available. By the first half of 2019, more than 5 million VoLTE registered users had been developed. China Unicom had landed 10 billion orders in February this year to expand the 4G network, paving the way for VoLTE commercialization, and finally launched the national VoLTE trial on June 1.
In the early 5G and post-VoLTE era, operators still need to strengthen LTE coverage and network optimization to enhance user experience, try their best to provide a variety of terminals and in a silent way, promote more users to VoLTE conversion, support 2G/3G de-netting and frequency clearance ready.
In the Internet of Things business, China Mobile has developed many 2G Internet of Things connections. These connections also help local operators to achieve the growth of Internet of Things business. However, the spectrum resources of 2G network are declining nowadays, and the experience provided by 2G network will be greatly reduced.
To this end, China Mobile must pay more attention to the construction of NB-IoT network based on 4G, and maintain the stable and high-speed development of Internet of Things business in the next few years. Because NB-IoT has the advantages of wide coverage, low power consumption and Dalian connection, it can also evolve smoothly to 5G. At present, China Telecom and China Unicom, the old rivals of China Mobile, are actively promoting the development of NB-IoT business, especially China Telecom has achieved good results in many industries.
From many speeches led by China Mobile Group, we can see that the next development of China Mobile's Internet of Things business will tend to NB-IoT connection rather than 2G connection.
Compared with China Mobile and China Unicom, as early as September 2018, China Telecom built over 400,000 NB-IoT base stations based on 800MHz resource advantages, achieving full coverage of urban and rural areas, and occupying an advantage in the field of NB-IoT business. In June this year, China Telecom started the expansion and new construction of Internet of Things control nodes in 2019. It is reported that by the end of 2019, China Telecom Internet of Things users are expected to further increase.
After China Unicom acquired 5M 900Mz spectrum resources, it was not used for 2G network, but for the construction of 4G network and NB-IoT coverage. With 5M resource support, China Unicom NB-IoT network will achieve better coverage, which is conducive to supporting the development of China Unicom NB-IoT business.
Overall, on the one hand, when the 2G withdrawal schedule of operators is announced, with the implementation of withdrawal work, 2G network resources will continue to decrease, and users'business experience based on 2G network will be greatly discounted, which will deter the 2G Internet of Things solution; on the other hand, the three major operators in the NB-IoT network construction are not only increasing investment, but also increasing. Tilt the band resources. The quality of NB-IoT network will be better and better.
At present, the price of NB-IoT module is almost the same as that of 2G module, and NB-IoT is strongly supported by national policy. It can be predicted that with the continuous investment of resources, the number of NB-IoT connections among the three operators will accelerate.
