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The year 2021 is an important turning point for COVID-19 and human society. In this context, the development of the communication industry is also facing an important historical opportunity.

In general, the impact of COVID-19 on our communications industry has not been significant.

2020 is the first year 5G will be commercially available. According to the data, the annual target of BUILDING 5G base stations (700,000) has been successfully completed. Commercial use of 5G SA independent network will be released as scheduled. The bidding for 5G by operators is also proceeding on schedule.

The emergence of the epidemic, not only did not hinder the pace of communication network construction, but also greatly stimulated the outbreak of communication demand. For example, telecommuting, teleconferencing, teleconferencing, etc., have become the social norm, and have been accepted by more and more users. Overall Internet traffic has also increased significantly compared to previous years.

Our country’s long-term investment in communications infrastructure has played a huge role in the fight against the epidemic. To some extent, the impact of the epidemic on our normal work and life has been weakened.

Through this pandemic, people realize that communication networks have become the basic infrastructure of people’s livelihood, like electricity and water. They are indispensable resources for our survival.

The new infrastructure strategy launched by the state is a great boon for the information and communication industry. A large part of the money to revive the economy will surely fall on ICT, driving the sustainable development of the industry. Information and communication infrastructure, in plain English, is to pave the way for digital transformation of various industries, and the ultimate purpose is industrial upgrading and productivity innovation.

1. trade conflict
The pandemic is not an obstacle to the industry’s growth. The real threat is trade conflict and political repression.
Under the intervention of external forces, the order of the global communication market is becoming more and more chaotic. Technology and price are no longer the primary factors in market competition.
Under political pressure, foreign operators lose the right to choose their own technologies and products, which increases unnecessary network construction costs and increases users’ online spending. This is actually a step backwards for human communication.
In the industry, the atmosphere of technical communication has become weird, and more and more experts have begun to choose silence. The convergence of technology standards that has taken the communications industry decades to develop could be divided again. In the future, we may face two parallel sets of world standards.
Facing the harsh environment, many enterprises are forced to spend more costs to sort out their upstream and downstream industry chains. They want to avoid risk and have more options and initiatives. Businesses should not be subjected to such uncertainty.
The hope is that the trade conflict will ease and the industry will return to its former state of development. However, a growing number of experts say that the new U.S. president will not change the nature of the trade conflict. Experts say we need to be prepared for the long haul. The situation we will face in the future is likely to be even more severe.

The pain of 5G
As we said earlier, the number of 5G base stations in China has reached 700,000.

In fact, my personal view is that while the construction targets are on schedule, the overall performance of 5G will be only moderate.

700,000 base stations, a large part of the outdoor macro stations with 5G antenna, very few new site to build stations. In terms of cost, it’s relatively easy.

However, more than 70% of user traffic comes from indoors. The investment in 5G indoor coverage is even greater. Really arrived when need hard just, can see the operator is still a little hesitant.

On the surface, the number of domestic 5G plan users exceeded 200 million. But the actual number of 5G users, by observing the situation around you, you should have some understanding. Many users are “5G”, with the name 5G but no real 5G.

5G is not an incentive for users to switch phones. More realistically, poor 5G signal coverage leads to frequent switching between 4G and 5G networks, affecting user experience and increasing power consumption. Many users have simply turned off the 5G switch on their phones.

The fewer users there are, the more operators want to shut down 5G base stations, and the worse the 5G signal will be. The worse the 5G signal, the fewer users will choose 5G. In this way, a vicious circle is formed.

People are more concerned about 4G speeds than 5G. So much so that many suspect that operators are artificially limiting 4G in order to develop 5G.

In addition to the mobile Internet, we expect the industrial Internet application scene outbreak has not come. Whether it is the Internet of vehicles, industrial Internet, or smart medical care, smart education, smart energy, are still in the stage of exploration, experiment and accumulation, although there are some cases of landing, but not very successful.

The epidemic has had a great impact on traditional industries. Under such circumstances, it is inevitable that traditional enterprises will be concerned about increasing the input of information and digital transformation. No one wants to be the first to spend money in the hope of seeing real returns.

▉ Cat. 1

The popularity of Cat.1 is a rare bright spot in 2020. 2/3G offline, achievements cat.1 rise. It also goes to show how flashy technology pales in the face of absolute cost advantages.
Many people believe that the trend of technology is “consumption upgrading”. The feedback from the market tells us that the Internet of Things is a classic “sinking market.” The cheapest technology to meet the requirements of the metrics will be the winner.

The popularity of CAT.1 has made the situation of NB-iot and eMTC a little awkward. How to go about the future of 5G mMTC scenario is worth serious consideration by equipment manufacturers and operators.

▉ all-optical 2.0
Compared with 5G access network (base station), operators are very willing to invest in carrying network.

In any case, bearer networks are used for both mobile and fixed-line broadband communications. The growth of 5G subscribers is not clear, but the growth of broadband subscribers is clear. What’s more, the market for dedicated access from government and enterprise users has been a lucrative one. IDC data centers are also growing rapidly, driven by cloud computing, and there is strong demand for backbone networks. Operators invest to expand the transmission network, steady profit.

In addition to the continued expansion of single-wave capacity (depending crucially on the cost of 400G optical modules), operators will focus on all-optical 2.0 and network intelligence.

All-optical 2.0, which I talked about earlier, is the popularity of all-optical switching like OXC. Network intelligence is to continue to promote SDN and SRv6 on the basis of IPv6, promote network programming, AI operation and maintenance, improve network efficiency, reduce the difficulty and cost of operation and maintenance.

▉ one billion
1000Mbps, an important milestone in the user’s network experience.
According to the current user use demand, the most important big bandwidth application or video. Not to mention mobile phones, 1080p is almost sufficient. Fixed-line broadband, home video will not exceed 4K in the short term, gigabit network is enough to cope. If we blindly pursue higher bandwidth, we will bear a sharp increase in cost, and it is difficult for users to accept and pay for it.
In the future, 5G gigabit, fixed-line broadband gigabit, Wi-Fi gigabit, will serve users for a technology life cycle of at least five years. It will take holographic communication, a revolutionary form of communication, to make it to the next level.

20,000 cloud net fusion
Cloud network convergence is the inevitable trend of communication network development.
In terms of communication network virtualization (cloud), the core network takes the lead. Currently, many provinces have completed the migration of 3/4G core networks to virtual resource pools.
Whether the cloud will save costs and simplify operation and maintenance remains to be seen. We’ll know in a year or two.
After the core network are the bearer network and the access network. Bearer network cloud has been on the road, is currently in the exploratory stage. As the most difficult part of mobile communication network, access network has made great progress.
The continued popularity of small base stations, and the open-RAN news, is actually a sign that people are paying attention to this technology trend. Whether or not they threaten the market share of traditional equipment vendors, and whether or not these technologies succeed, will shape the future of the communications industry.
Moving edge computing is also a key point of concern.
As an extension of cloud computing, edge computing has obvious application scenarios without great technical difficulties and has great market potential. The biggest challenge of edge computing lies in the construction of ecology. The platform itself is not profitable.

1. carrier transformation
As the core of the entire communication industry, operators’ every move will cause everyone’s attention.
After years of intense competition and speed hikes and price cuts, it’s tough for operators at the 4G/5G inflection point. The asset-heavy business model, with hundreds of thousands of employees to support, makes it difficult for the elephant to walk, not to say dance.
If do not transform, seek new profit growth point, so, the operator behind the day is afraid will be more and more difficult. Closure is out of the question, the state will not allow it. But what about mergers and reorganizations? Can everyone get away with the turmoil?
The reduction of profits is bound to affect the welfare of employees. Really good people, they will choose to leave. The brain drain will exacerbate management pressure, weaken competitive advantage and further affect profits. In this way, another vicious circle.
Unicom’s mixed reform, has entered the fourth year. Opinions vary on the effectiveness of mixed-use reform. Now the construction of 5G, Unicom and telecom to jointly build and share, the specific effect of how, also needs to be further observed. No problem is impossible. We’ll see what problems will arise and whether they can be solved.
In terms of radio and television, their investment in 5G will more or less promote the growth of the communication industry, but I am still not optimistic about the long-term development of RADIO and television 5G.

▉ epilogue
Keywords of the year are now popular. In my mind, the key word of the year for the communications industry in 2020 is “Ask for directions.” In 2021, I think it’s “patience.”
Further incubation of 5G industry application scenarios requires patience; The maturity and development of the industrial chain requires patience; As critical technologies evolve and spread, so does patience. 5G noise has passed, we have to get used to facing insipid. Sometimes, loud gongs and drums are not necessarily a good thing, and silence is not necessarily a bad thing.
Greater patience will often usher in more fruitful fruits. Isn’t it?