China Telecom plans to deploy 6G business ahead of schedule, what is its confidence?

The global industry's exploration and research process of next-generation mobile communications (6G) is accelerating, and my country is also speeding up, especially for telecom operators. China Telecom has proposed a 6G network architecture vision.

Wang Guirong, general manager of the Science and Technology Innovation Department of China Telecom, recently talked about China Telecom's layout in 6G research and development. He said that the 6G layout in advance is to independently control the core technology.

China Telecom focuses on two aspects of 6G

China Telecom's A-share listing has entered the countdown. Recently, China Telecom issued an announcement and determined the issuance price of 4.53 yuan per share. According to the issue price, the total amount of funds raised by China Telecom this time is estimated to be 47.09 billion yuan to 54.159 billion yuan.

According to the previous announcement, the funds raised by China Telecom in the A-share market IPO will be used for 5G industrial Internet construction projects, cloud-network integration new information infrastructure projects, and scientific and technological innovation research and development projects. Among them, scientific and technological innovation research and development involves research on cutting-edge technologies such as 6G and quantum information.

According to Wang Guirong, China Telecom focuses on two aspects of 6G:

The first is the evolution of 5G, especially the extension of cloud technology to wireless access networks, the support of vertical industries, coverage and capacity expansion, and other technical directions; the second is the new technology fields such as AI, digital twins, computing power networks, and blockchain.

 

Why do we need to lay out 6G in advance?

It is generally believed that integrated air, space and ground communication is one of the main features of 6G. Recently, China Telecom's satellite communications and tethered drone aerial base stations rushed to Henan for emergency prevention and showed their talents on the front line of flood relief and disaster relief, which are regarded by the industry as a "rehearsal" of 6G air-space-ground integrated communications.

In order to grasp the commanding heights of 6G technology, countries around the world are currently competing for deployment. my country established a national 6G technology research and development promotion working group and an overall expert group in November 2019, and officially launched 6G research and development.

On May 12 this year, Liu Liehong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, presided over a 5G/6G special meeting, calling for in-depth research on 6G application scenarios; at the same time, efforts were made to promote innovation and breakthroughs in key technologies, focusing on terahertz communication, integration of communication perception, and integration of communication and artificial intelligence. Wait for 6G potential technologies, and strive to make major breakthroughs in key core technologies.

6G will promote society to "digital twin" and "wisdom ubiquity" has basically become the consensus of the industry. China Telecom believes that 6G has five key characteristics: ubiquitous, intelligent and simplified, data integration, credibility, and extreme. China Telecom has put forward the vision of 6G network architecture, which is to form a ubiquitous hyper-converged network architecture based on "three layers and three sectors". The three-layer refers to that the network based on the SDN architecture is divided into three layers: the infrastructure layer, the network function layer, and the network operating system layer. The three fans represent the capabilities of intelligence/trust and data integration. These endogenous capabilities will span the three layers.

In accordance with the law of "applying one generation and developing one generation" in mobile communication technology, China Telecom has started the research and development and layout of 6G as early as 2019. The research direction is mainly millimeter wave as the main frequency and terahertz as the sub-frequency 6G technology. At the World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC 2021) 5G Co-construction and Sharing Summit, Liu Guiqing, deputy general manager of China Telecom, also formally proposed to integrate the network sharing concept into the 6G standard vision.

China's mobile communications industry has experienced a process of "1G blank, 2G following, 3G breakthrough, 4G running in parallel, and 5G surpassing". China Telecom believes that 5G is the present and 6G is the future. 6G has become one of the focus of strategic competition among major powers. The deployment of 6G research and development in advance is conducive to taking core technologies in their own hands.

 

6G R&D needs to deal with multiple challenges

Experts said

The challenges facing 6G R&D are mainly in four aspects: First, the basic theoretical innovation is relatively weak and lack of transformative technological breakthroughs; the second is that the "stuck neck" problem of core chips and components still exists; the third is millimeter wave and terahertz. Such high-frequency systems may subvert the traditional network construction and operation modes of operators; fourth, the uncertainty of the trend of international relations will increase the risk of future 6G standards and industry differentiation.

It is reported that China Telecom has established a cross-professional 6G R&D team to systematically carry out 6G R&D work and actively undertake key international and domestic research tasks. China Telecom has led a number of national key 6G special studies and participated in the research work of 6G domestic and foreign industry organizations such as Future Forum, IMT2030, and ANA.

China Telecom believes that both 5G and 6G are inseparable from technological innovation. The core of technological innovation is to rely on people. It is understood that there are currently more than 10,000 R&D personnel at the professional company level of China Telecom. In the future, it will further recruit high-end talents to expand the R&D team. The proportion of R&D personnel will increase from the current 5% to more than 10% or even 20% in the next few years.

It is worth noting that the preliminary inquiry for China Telecom's A-share listing has been completed, and the offline and online subscription is currently underway. One of the main uses of fund-raising is for technological innovation research and development projects such as 6G.

China Telecom will also further jointly conduct research on key 6G technologies with universities and research institutes.

In short, in the face of 6G challenges, decision-making, talents, R&D investment and ecological construction are all indispensable.