IT House  reported on December 7 that the 2023 World 5G Conference with the theme of "5G Transformation Shapes the Future" was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Henan Provincial Government, and hosted by the Henan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, Zhengzhou Municipal Government, and the Future Mobile Communications Forum. It will be held at the Zhengzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province from December 6th to 8th .

According to the " ICT Industry Observation " public account, Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, delivered a keynote speech titled " Restarting with 5G Model Innovation " at the main forum.

Wu Hequan said that in response to problems arising from 5G market applications, it is necessary to provide 5G+ capabilities before 6G is commercialized, and 5G-A (5.5G) is about to come out. However, as the large-scale commercial use of 5G-A approaches, operators may be worried about the issues of historical investment protection and asset returns. “The return on investment in the previous round is not enough. Is the new investment worth it?”

Note from IT House: 5G-A stands for 5G-Advanced, which is also commonly referred to as 5.5G. It is the transitional stage between 5G and 6G and will surpass the existing 5G in terms of speed, delay, connection scale and energy consumption. , is expected to achieve peak speeds of 10 Gigabit downlink and Gigabit uplink, millisecond-level latency and low-cost 100 billion IoT.

According to the definition of the international standards organization 3GPP, there are six technical standards from Release15 to Release20 between 5G and 6G, of which R15 to R17 are the first stage of the 5G standard, and R18 to R20 are the second stage of the 5G standard.

Wu Hequan also said that for mass users, regular 5G needs can be directly supported by existing 5G networks, and some 5G-A functions can be implemented on existing 5G networks only through software upgrades, without new investment.

For some users with higher needs to use the 5G-A network, new base stations need to be built. Wu Hequan emphasized that the goal of 5G-A is not to replace 5G, but only to supplement 5G in hotspot areas or specific scenarios. Although future 6G aims at seamless coverage, it only refers to reachable capabilities.

In terms of public network deployment, "5G-A is just an upgrade of 5G in terms of functionality and coverage. 5G-A does not need to cover the entire network. It is just a 5G supplement in hotspot areas, which can save investment." Wu Hequan said that China Telecom and China Unicom is jointly building a 5G network. The two companies share spectrum and base stations, and each independently builds the core network. The model of jointly building and sharing wireless access networks can also be extended to 5.5G network construction.