Former Google CEO says "US lags behind China in 5G race",

In the past few years, China has indeed achieved a leading position in 5G construction and application, but in the author's opinion, 5G applications in the United States may still form a catch-up through late-stage advantage, 5G applications in various industries is a systematic project, but also requires a number of technology areas together. Recently, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Harvard professor Graham Allison jointly published an article in the Wall Street Journal, saying that the U.S. 5G race has lagged far behind China, and calling on "the Biden administration to make 5G a national priority and take the lead in building a digital highway nationwide. In the past few years, China has indeed achieved a leading position in 5G construction and application, but in the author's view, the US may still catch up through late-stage advantage in 5G application, and 5G application in various industries is a systemic project that requires joint efforts from multiple technology fields. The U.S. 5G development is slow due to multiple constraints Schmidt and Allison pointed out in a joint article that the U.S. government's "indecisiveness" will make the country lag far behind China in the race to build 5G technology. The article cites third-party data showing that 5G speeds in the U.S. are much lower than in China, with the average 5G speed in the U.S. being about 75Mbs, compared to 300Mbs in urban centers in China, and that 5G in some U.S. cities is even slower than 4G, for example, AT&T's 5G speeds are at least 10% slower than 4G in Boston, Chicago and New York, and Verizon's 5G speeds are at least 10% slower than 4G in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Austin. Verizon's 5G speeds are at least 20 percent slower than the company's 4G. In addition to dissatisfaction with network speeds, Schmidt also believes that the U.S. 5G lags behind China in global markets, industry investment, and resource allocation. For example, in terms of investment, the U.S. Senate's Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, which proclaims "the key to maintaining America's position on the world stage as the 21st century's current and future technology leader," only authorizes $1.5 billion for 5G mobile networks by 2026, which is a drop in the bucket for 5G construction. Schmidt is the former CEO of Google and has a strong influence in the U.S. technology community. This is not the first time he has warned the U.S. about 5G construction. Last March, Schmidt said publicly that China was 10 times ahead of the U.S. in the field of 5G, and that the U.S. might have "lost the game", and worse, if the U.S. does not act, it is likely to be overtaken by China in the next 10 years and lose its dominant position in the field of artificial intelligence, a high-end technology. Of course, Schmidt's comments may have the suspicion of "butt decision brain", when Schmidt was the chairman of the U.S. National Security Council on Artificial Intelligence, in order to get the government to invest more budget in research, may be some of the problems will be magnified, and claim that the Biden administration should be 5G as a national priority. However, from the current data, the United States is indeed slow in the development of 5G. Data show that as of October 2021, the number of 5G base stations in the United States is only 100,000, while China, which is not very different from the United States in terms of land area, has opened more than 1.15 million 5G base stations in the same period, and even South Korea has opened 250,000 5G base stations. The slow construction of 5G infrastructure in the United States has many constraints behind it. On the one hand, the high price of radio spectrum has overwhelmed the U.S. carriers. For example, in January last year, the Federal Communications Commission auctioned 280MHz of frequencies in the C-band 3.70GHz-3.98GHz band, which eventually fetched an astronomical price of $80.9 billion, with Verizon and AT&T paying $45.45 billion and $23.4 billion respectively, and subsequently paying clearing fees to the satellite operators occupying the band. On the other hand, even though the radio spectrum was acquired at an exorbitant price, it was still blocked in many ways, most notably by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which proposed that 5G networks deployed in C-band could interfere with aircraft autopilot systems, causing the deployment of 5G networks in the U.S. mid-band to be repeatedly delayed. Radio spectrum is only one of the factors, there are other factors, such as the lack of leading 5G communications equipment vendors in the United States, the small number of terminal manufacturers. With these factors in the way, is the U.S. 5G industry really lagging behind China? The author believes that the commercialization of 5G is a long-running process, the ultimate goal is still in the application, that is, to enable the national economy of various industries to achieve digital upgrade using 5G technology, to enhance the strength of the industries. 5G infrastructure construction lags behind, does not mean that the future 5G applications will lag behind, we might as well explore this issue from the development of China's 4G history. 4G in China: A late-stage advantage drives industry prosperity Looking back at the development of 4G in China, it is well known that the commercialization of 4G in China was 3-4 years behind the mainstream overseas markets, and there were some constraints that delayed the commercialization of 4G, such as the short commercialization of 3G to ensure the recovery of 3G investment and the maturity of the industry chain. However, China's 4G industry has largely developed a late-stage advantage, taking full advantage of the favorable factors in the late-stage advantage to quickly promote China's 4G as the most successful mobile communication ecology. China officially released its 4G license in December 2013, however, as early as December 2009, Scandinavian operators built the world's first 4G networks in Sweden and Norway, and since then, operators in many countries have been quick to follow suit. As of mid-October 2013, LTE networks have been commercially available in 83 countries worldwide, for a total of 222 commercial networks. In other words, there were 222 commercial 4G networks in the world by the time 4G became commercially available in China, and many operators had been operating their networks for several years. Although China's 4G commercialization is at least 3 years behind some developed regions, the vast experience of overseas commercial pioneers and China's related accumulation gives China's 4G a latecomer advantage. In terms of experience, the first commercializers bring to China. First, in terms of technology, 4G technology has a high level of maturity; by December 2013, LTE had been in commercial practice for four years, and the technology no longer has as many problems as it did in the early days of commercialization, with various deficiencies having been perfected and domestic operators no longer needing trial and error. It is worth noting that in June 2013, Korean operators opened the first LTE-Advanced network, LTE-Advanced has greatly improved the data rate, spectrum efficiency and user performance of 4G, making 4.5G a reality. Second, in terms of cost, 4G deployment and application costs have been greatly reduced. After four years and more than 80 operators worldwide, 4G network equipment has been shipped in scale, and infrastructure costs have been greatly reduced; the number of 4G terminals worldwide has also begun to enrich, and terminal costs have been significantly reduced. Third, in terms of operation, many operators have a large number of user operation experience. For example, as of the end of 2013, the 4G user penetration rate of Verizon in the United States exceeded 44%, and the 4G user penetration rate of SK in Korea reached about 50%. Such a high user penetration rate enables operators to form mature experience in tariff setting, marketing, and user management. Fourth, in terms of application, a large number of scenarios and mature business models have been formed worldwide, which is most important. "According to the Internet Trends Report 2014 released by Mary Meeker, the size of mobile data traffic is soaring at an astounding 81% from August 2012 to early 2014, and many mobile applications are taking over every aspect of people's daily lives at an unprecedented rate, including WhatsAPP, WeChat and other global OTT communication services that have received The growth of photo and video sharing services such as Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat is driving the growth of network traffic, the rapid growth of content distribution channels, the rapid emergence of APP applications in various areas such as clothing, food, housing, transportation and entertainment, and the combination of mobile terminals and these applications has resulted in over 4ZB of data traffic in 2013. These scenarios and the business models formed on this basis are highly coincident with the time period of 4G commercialization, and many applications are also formed only with the 4G network, providing a large number of reference templates for mobile Internet innovation after 4G commercialization in China. Of course, only the experience of these overseas pioneers can not form a late-stage advantage, China also needs to have the soil to use these experiences, in order to turn them into development momentum, forming a real late-stage advantage. At the time of 4G license release, the country not only has the conditions for 4G infrastructure construction, but more importantly, has the conditions for 4G applications. First, China has the world's largest mobile Internet users. From the end of 2008 when China issued 3G license, mobile Internet started to take root in the country and the number of users accessing the Internet through cell phones continued to grow. By the end of 2013, China had 500 million mobile Internet users. This is the largest mobile Internet user base in the world, which can be quickly converted into 4G-based users. Second, China's mobile Internet is in the midst of an innovation explosion. Before 2013, mobile payment, mobile video, shared travel, local life and other business forms had already emerged, but it was after the commercialization of 4G that rapid development was realized. At present, China's mobile Internet has changed every aspect of people's clothing, food, housing, transportation and entertainment, and these industries are inseparable from the improvement of 4G network infrastructure, which can be said to be the embodiment of "4G changes life". China's 4G development process is, to a certain extent, to fully exploit the advantages of latecomers, especially in the application of global leadership. Will the U.S. use its late-stage advantage to take the lead in 5G applications, given that the conditions are right on many fronts? Ministry of Industry and Information Technology data show that by the end of 2021, China had built and opened 1.425 million 5G base stations, accounting for more than 60% of the world's total base stations, 355 million 5G users, and more than 10,000 innovative cases of 5G industry applications, covering more than 20 national economic sectors such as industry and healthcare, with applications penetrating from production support to core sectors. Undoubtedly, China is a global leader in 5G construction and application. In a number of areas, we are exploring "no man's land", the results of which will form the preliminary experience, so that those who come after can take less detours. These explorations include technology validation, cost reduction for large-scale deployment, and the formation of replicable templates for various industry applications. Currently, the U.S. 5G infrastructure construction is in a slow state of development due to various factors, but in the future, after the elimination of these obstacles, 5G applications in various industries is likely to take advantage of latecomers to form the leading 5G applications. In the author's view, the application of 5G in various industries is not only the readiness of 5G technology and infrastructure, but also contains a variety of factors, and the United States already has certain conditions in other areas, that is, the conditions to take advantage of the latecomer advantage, mainly including. First, technology, the application of 5G in various industries is actually a process of convergence of diverse technologies. 5G must be combined with various ICT technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, block chain, etc. in order to realize industry applications on the ground. Although the current 5G infrastructure is a shortcoming, in the future, with reference to ready-made experience, it will quickly form a comprehensive technology integration application and realize its late-stage advantage. Second, the industrial base, 5G applications in various industries need to have a better foundation. This includes the technical foundation of each industry, the level of digitization, and other conditions that determine the effectiveness of 5G applications in the industry. According to the "White Paper on the Global Digital Economy in 2021" published by the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, the digital economy of the United States will reach US$13.6 trillion in 2020, ranking first in the world, with the digitalization of industries accounting for more than 80% of the total. This shows that the U.S. industries are leading in the breadth and depth of application of core technologies in the digital economy, and the level of digitization in each industry is also leading. With this foundation, if various industries have demand for 5G applications, they can realize rapid implementation, so they can give full play to the 5G latecomer advantage. Third, the U.S. industry is also advancing 5G technology and deployment in a variety of other ways. The U.S. 5G-related industry chain companies are not waiting for the slow deployment of 5G by carriers, but are actively pushing forward in a variety of ways, mainly in the following ways: First, they are actively promoting the sharing of CBRS frequency bands, providing enterprise private network bands for authorization and promoting the implementation of private networks, such as Amazon's Private5G program, which can help enterprises build a 5G private network within a few days. Second, major Internet vendors continue to innovate and launch 5G cloud core networks and edge computing solutions to help operators and enterprises quickly realize 5G applications. Third, the development and ecological construction of open source wireless access networks (Opne Ran) are being promoted to reduce the cost of 5G deployment. Although the current U.S. 5G infrastructure construction seems to be lagging behind, on the basis of the above accumulation, the U.S. industries should have a lot of conditions for 5G. In the future, after its 5G infrastructure barriers are lifted, it can quickly implement industry applications with the help of the experience formed by 5G pioneers, especially some industry applications that can be replicated as templates, to form a lead with a latecomer advantage. Therefore, the competition of 5G is not only the competition of 5G technology and infrastructure construction in the short-term years, but also 5G is an enabling technology, and the ultimate goal is to upgrade the digitalization and competitiveness of various industries in the national economy based on the formation of 5G.